Necromancer's Waltz
by AlcatrazisGod
Summary: Receiving a letter from a dead person proved very unnerving for Jaune. Despite the constant warning signs of it either being a trap or a sick prank, he set out for answers. After reaching the sketchy address mentioned in the letter, Jaune found himself standing outside of a lonely apartment complex filled with people who aren't quite alive nor truly dead.
1. Beyond the Grave

**Beyond the Grave**

Jaune stared down at a letter in his hand. He peered at it under the light of a lone streetlamp. It was the only source of light he had on hand. Not the brightest move in recollection as this part of town was extremely dark and he neglected to bring a flashlight.

He flinched as he read over that creepy note one last time just to make sure he got the address right. The parchment read, _"Jaune, I know this is going to be strange for you, but try to meet me at the location specified below. I honestly have no idea what's going on, but I want to see you. Perhaps we can figure it out if we put our heads together."_

The contents of the letter were cryptic enough, and after comparing the address to nearby street signs, he was able to confirm that he was indeed in the right place. He was disappointed in that fact as the building looming over him was anything but inviting. The area around him alone was enough to put him on edge.

However, it was the signature on the letter that never failed to send a chill down his spine. His eyes fell upon it one more time and he could not look away.

 _"_ _Pyrrha Nikos."_

He reached three separate conclusions one what this could mean but he only placed genuine stock in two of them as did everyone else who saw this demented letter. It could either be a prank, or a trap. Realizing his own luck, it was probably both.

Jaune even briefly entertained the laughable idea that the letter he clung so tightly to was not a mere forgery. He tried to suppress any false hope that arose from such an idea, but he still came regardless of how many of his peers warned against it.

Ruby had even volunteered to go with him, and almost immediately after arriving at this unnerving location, Jaune regretted heading out alone. He could not even recall the logic behind that move. He felt so stupid. He felt stupid for even bothering to come all this way.

He found himself in a part of town he had never even heard of before and all because of some bizarre, most certainly forged, letter he found in his mailbox asking him to meet a dead woman in this sketchy apartment complex. The idea that Pyrrha would even bother setting foot in a place such as this made no sense to him.

Regardless, he checked the time on his phone. Ideally, he would be back in his dorm at that point in time. He had no intentions of coming at night, but somehow he managed to oversleep despite the nagging questions that would have otherwise kept him wide awake. By the time he reached the address specified, the sun had long since disappeared behind the cityscape.

The property beyond was encircled by a rusty fence with a single, narrow opening just in front of him. The grass was knee high and several trees and rows of unkempt shrubs dotted the lawn leading up to that lonely building. The property was pitch black. Aside from a lone light flickering on and off just above the building's entrance, everything was engulfed in darkness.

It was a large apartment building, but it looked very secluded. He could see light shining through various windows. There were definitely people inside but whether that was a good or bad thing, only time would tell.

The place was dead quiet. Nothing moved. Nothing made so much as a peep. He longed for something to break the silence. He would have taken crazed junkies screaming at him from a nearby alley or the unforgettable howl of a Grimm over this unsettling silence any day of the week.

He looked down at the cracked pavement leading up to the front entrance. Grass and weeds were deep in the process of reclaiming that small sliver of concrete. It looked as if it had not been traveled in a very long time and there was probably a reason for that.

Jaune let out a long, panicked sigh as he took his first step forward. The moment he crossed that opening in the fence, he leaped backward at the sight of nothing. His heart was racing and nothing had even happened.

"This isn't right," he hissed to himself, taking comfort in the sound of his own voice. "I shouldn't be here."

He glanced back at the same sidewalk that led him to this forgotten place. There it was. The path that would lead him back to the relative safety of downtown. He could still turn back and it was tempting. Very tempting.

Still, there was a hope that compelled him to move forward. A combination of a morbid curiosity and a desire to at least confirm that Pyrrha truly was dead, even though he already knew the answer to that question.

Jaune regained his composure, took another deep breath, and pressed onward. His approach started slow. Nothing around him moved but as he cleared a bit of distance between himself and that imposing set of double doors, Jaune felt a strange tingling running up his spine.

Technically, there was no reason to assume he was being followed. Out here, he felt like the last man in the world. None the less, he could not shake the feeling that someone or something was closing in on him quickly. He heard no footsteps, it was only a feeling and a compelling one at that.

Jaune picked up the pace a bit. That tingling sensation swiftly engulfed his entire back as if something was not just following him, it was literally climbing around underneath his skin. Panicking, he bolted for the door. He sprinted as fast as he possibly could, not even considering the option to turn around and draw his weapon.

The moment his hands touched the doors Jaune pulled them open, darted inside and slammed them shut behind himself.

* * *

The interior of the building was relatively calm. Jaune pressed his back against the doors, knowing it was probably all in his head.

Jaune looked up to take in his new surroundings. The lobby was surprisingly expansive. A large chandelier hung high overhead. It was littered with candles and lit up most of the room, although, there were various other sources of light lining the walls.

On the far side of the room, Jaune spotted a desk and a woman sitting behind it with her head buried in a book. Her red hair almost caused Jaune to jump out of his skin before he came to the obvious realization that the woman in question looked nothing like Pyrrha.

She glanced up at him with cold and careless eyes before simply returning her attention to the book on the table.

Her reaction to his presence alone, or rather her lack thereof was enough to weird him out a bit. Jaune was quick to dismiss his own apprehension, knowing it was only a product of working himself up during his trip.

He smiled and approached the front desk.

"Hi! Uh, I'm looking for someone named Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. The girl who used to be on the cereal boxes. I've actually got a picture here."

Jaune reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper only to unfold it, revealing that he did indeed have a photo of the woman.

The receptionist kept her eyes locked on her book. She paid no attention to him. She did not so much as flinch at the sound of his voice.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Finally, the woman acknowledged his existence. She slowly looked up at him with an annoyed glare. Jaune took a step back at the sight of her face. She was not exactly unattractive, but her face looked as if it had been drained of all blood. She was unnaturally pale. Jaune wondered if she had been exposed to sunlight at all in the past decade.

The woman's eyes drifted down to the photo in his hand. At that point, Jaune noticed a name tag on her shirt which read ' _Julia_.'

Her eyes shifted back to her book once again without uttering a word. Just when Jaune was about to ask her again in a far more assertive tone, she murmured under her breath.

"Top floor. Room 666."

Jaune froze after hearing her reply. He still managed to hear her loud and clear. "She's actually here!? You've seen her."

"Elevator is out of order," Julia muttered in a frustrated tone of voice. "Take the stairs."

"Room 666 right," Jaune asked just to verify that he had gotten the number right. The receptionist slowly nodded her head but said nothing.

Blinded by excitement, Jaune immediately turned away from the counter but not without getting one last look at her name tag. "Thanks a lot… uh… Julia! Oh, is there a restroom nearby?"

Julia pointed to the right side of the room where two closed off doors were located. Jaune immediately recognized the pink and blue labels on either one and set off for his next destination.

He noticed the stairwell on the right side of the counter leading to the upper levels of the complex. He wanted to dart off at full speed, but he had not come across a restroom since his trip started and it was beginning to get to him.

Attempting to make a quick pit-stop, Jaune entered the men's restroom and immediately regretted his decision. The lights were off and the entire room was pitch black. It did not take him long to find a light switch as it was conveniently placed on the wall just to the right of the door.

He switched it on and after some stuttering, a single row of fluorescent lights flickered on just above the line of sinks underneath one long mirror on the right side of the room. It was not exactly what he had hoped for, but it did at the very least illuminate enough of the restroom so that he could see where he was going.

One thing Jaune noticed before taking another step forward was that only one of the stall doors were closed. He looked to the floor and surely enough, a pair of boots could be seen in the open space between the stall walls and the grimy tiled floor.

Jaune scratched his head at this strange sight. It was a public bathroom but he could not for the life of him figure out why someone was utilizing it without a single light on. Deciding that some questions were better left unanswered, he decided to carry on and make his time here quick before setting out on more important endeavors.

* * *

The only sound in the bathroom was that ambient buzzing from the lights above the sinks and mirror. It was at least something, but Jaune could not help but be creeped out by everything around him.

He made as little noise as possible and listened for any commotion from the other person a few stalls down but heard nothing. It was as if he were all alone but he knew that could not be the case. Regardless, his mind was on other things.

As he headed to the nearest sink and prepared to wash his hands thoroughly after having to deal with this, not so clean establishment, Jaune's mind raced with theories and assumptions. He got a room number, albeit, a suspicious one and confirmation that at least one person has seen her. A small grain of hope was what dragged him into such a dark place, and now that one hint of glee had utterly consumed his grieving heart.

"I should turn back," he whispered to himself. "I should just come back tomorrow with backup and then go looking around. Seriously, what am I even doing here? This is how horror movies start."

Jaune finished washing his hands and splashed some water on his face. He was already wide awake, but he did it anyway. As he rose up from the sink and got one last look at himself in that grimy mirror, he noticed something about the stall on the far end of the bathroom. The pair of feet inside were gone.

Jaune's stomach sank into his intestines like a ton of bricks. Not wanting to turn around, he used the mirror as his only vantage point. His eyes followed up the stall's door. It was especially dark in that corner of the restroom, but he could still see everything relatively clearly.

His eyes soon fell upon a strange silhouette peeking over the top of the stall's walls. The dark outline of a person's head. He could make out no facial features of the stranger peeking at him, but he could see a pair of wide eyes staring right back at him.

Jaune was frozen there for a few microseconds while his brain fully processed what his eyes had picked up on. Once his synapses were able to put two and two together, Jaune bolted out of the restroom without bothering to look back.

* * *

Jaune walked as fast as he possibly could to the front doors on the far side of the lobby. Julia watched him with her eyes as he made his way to the nearest exit.

Jaune planted his hands on the first doorknob he could reach and prepared to flee into the night. He hesitated. The nagging voice in his head telling him to at least go to the top floor and check things out was an overbearing presence in his mind.

He dropped his head in defeat and sighed at his own foolishness. He turned back to the expansive lobby ahead. Jaune met the gaze of that weird receptionist on the far side of the room. He expected her to remain quiet. She stared at him for a moment with a blank expression before suddenly betraying his expectations.

"Turn back while you can, kid. Whatever or whoever your looking for just isn't worth it."

He could not have asked for a more blatant and foreboding warning. Jaune kept glancing between the set of doors behind him that would probably lead to an uneventful trip home and the stairwell up ahead. So easily could he avoid whatever nonsense was obviously lying in wait.

His mind was split into two trains of thought. The first was begging for him to leave and never come back. The second was screaming for him to move forward and disregard that little warning. He stood there in total silence trying to think it over. He could not think of one good reason to carry on in this enigmatic apartment building. Likewise, Jaune did not want to leave now that he had obtained evidence that she could possibly be here.

Eventually, one of those opposing voices managed to scream louder than the other and his decision had been made. He marched back toward the stairs, glancing at the restroom as he passed it by. He was relieved to see that whoever he encountered in there was still inside.

As Jaune passed the front desk, Julia called out to him. Her voice caused him to stop in his tracks.

"It's dangerous to go alone," she remarked in monotone. She then took out a flashlight and placed it on the table. "Here, take this."

"Oh, thanks," Jaune said with a nod. He swiped the flashlight off the table and checked it for functionality. Surely enough, it shined and shined brightly.

With that, Jaune headed for the stairs. He could feel Julia's eyes on him the entire time. He could not shake the strange vibe he got from her, regardless of how helpful she had been. He glanced back one last time to see her eyes once again locked on the book in front of her. He set out for the stairwell and showed no intentions of turning back.

* * *

At the base of the stairs, Jaune looked up to the winding path leading straight up. There were two rows of stairs before him. The first led upward. He could even see a door which he assumed led to the first official floor.

The one to his right, however, led downward. There was a rusty sign posted on the wall which was labeled, " _Basement_."

He gulped at the dimly lit staircase which led down to a lonely door below. He breathed heavily in relief at the thought that he had absolutely no reason to go down there.

"Guess I could at least check out that room," he thought as he tilted his head in an attempt to see the top of the stairs. "If Pyrrha isn't there then I can just make a break for the exit and never come back. Yeah, that's a genius plan!"

He then slammed his fist into the palm of his left hand out of newfound confidence.

" _What could possibly go wrong!?_ "

Jaune promptly marched up the stairs. At first, he allowed his feet to simply slam against the carpet as he made his way upward. After reaching the first level, though, he decided to keep quiet as drawing unnecessary attention to himself did not seem like the best idea.

Out of curiosity, he glanced at the door he was on the verge of passing by. There was a narrow window which gave him a somewhat decent view of the hallway beyond. It was fairly well lit, but desolate. There was not a soul to be seen. He reminded himself of the time, but the sight was still a bit unsettling.

For a moment, he entertained the foolish idea to check out that floor but he quickly shrugged the idea off.

"Literally, no reason to go that way. Why did it even cross my mind?"

Jaune kept himself focused on the task at hand. As much as he did want to know a little more about this bizarre apartment complex, he kept reminding himself that there was a reason for his visit and so he kept moving.

He kept clinging to that hope all while he scaled those stairs. Hoping that maybe, just maybe there was a surprise waiting for him at the top.

An end to his seemingly endless grief.

* * *

 _Note: I've been looking for an excuse to write another horror story. It's my favorite genre and it's ironically the one I write the least. This project is a product of two things. Mainly, this entire story was inspired by one little scene I had planned for another work. The project in question doesn't exist anymore, I removed it because I had no intention to keep working on it._

 _It was a crossover between_ _Red vs Blue_ _and_ _RWBY_ _. It was mostly a surrealist parody featuring the Red Team's portal going haywire and it started accessing all these weird dimensions. I won't go into it too much as the overall plot is irrelevant, but one scene in particular that I had always planned to include but never got around to writing featured Jaune peering into the portal and seeing Pyrrha being tormented in Hell._

 _Looking back, while that entire project did revolve around some really dark jokes, there was no punchline to that scene. It was just horrific and out of place which is the main reason why it was never written and only kept being pushed back to later and later chapters._

 _The other source of inspiration I had going into this story was the horror genre as a whole. These modern slasher flicks take themselves way too seriously so I wanted to write something that wasn't a total parody but straddles the line a bit. Hopefully, I succeed in that regard._

 _I hope you all enjoy this weird little story I came up with and do feel free to leave feedback._


	2. Floor 1

_Note: My first concept for this story was drastically different from the project you're now reading. Originally, the story was supposed to take place from the perspective of Pyrrha._

 _The idea was that she would constantly be trying to contact Jaune, not realizing that she was actually dead, and each time she only succeeded in terrifying him. It was essentially an inverted ghost story. When this new idea started coming together, I ditched that whole concept pretty quickly, but I thought it would be interesting to bring up._

 _While I don't really know for sure, I'm pretty certain that concept has been done before. I mean... everything has been done multiple times over already, but that one seems like an especially obvious idea._

 _Who knows, maybe I'll turn that into a future project later on, but I doubt it._

* * *

 **Floor 1**

Jaune jumped at every creek and moan the old building made. He kept checking over his shoulder to reassure himself that he was not being followed by whoever was peeping on him in the restroom. Of course, there was nothing going on aside from his own paranoia.

He had reached a point where he was beginning to wish a Grimm or Cinder Fall would jump out at him. At least it was better than this constant feeling of dread brought onto him by the mere fact that aside from that creeper in the bathroom and that enigmatic receptionist, there was no one around.

Despite his growing apprehension, Jaune crept past each and every floor. He kept his eyes away from the narrow window built into each door as the last thing he wanted to do was scare himself even more by looking down those dark corridors.

As he reached the fifth floor, however, his temptation got the better of him. He stopped and looked through the door's window. There was only a couple of lights on in the hallway ahead that dotted the path. Everything else was cast in shadow.

Doors lined the walls, all but one were shut. Jaune gulped at the sight of one apartment door that upon further examination, appeared to just barely be cracked open. It was far too dark for him to see if anyone was actually peeping at him. For the sake of his own sanity, he assumed it to be vacant and decided to move on.

He backed away until he nearly tripped on the first step leading up to the sixth floor. He twirled around and started up the next flight of stairs only to stop in his tracks in response to a faint but audible sound. It came from somewhere behind him. It sounded like a thud or perhaps a door being slammed shut.

Jaune slowly turned and approached the window once more. The first thing to catch his attention was that the door just down the hall had been closed.

Without thinking, Jaune full on sprinted up the stairs. He did not care how much noise he made so long as he got to Room 666 without any more weird events unfolding then it no longer mattered to him.

* * *

Jaune wanted to scream when he reached the top floor. Not out of fear, but sheer frustration. All of that tension and build up as he braved his way up to the ninth floor only to find it locked.

At first, he thought the door was jammed as he had never heard of an apartment complex that would actually lock its denizens on their respective floors. Surely enough, he noticed a keyhole just above the doorknob.

"Come on," he exclaimed. His voice produced an unnerving echo in the stairwell. " _Pyrrha! Can you hear me!? It's Jaune!_ "

Jaune's screams for attention grew louder when he managed to spot Room 666 through the window. Unlike the other floors, the ninth level appeared to be one single corridor. There was a sole flickering light on at the very end of the hall illuminating a marked door. The numbers on the door practically glowed, allowing Jaune to see them even from such a great distance. They taunted him.

"Hey! Open up!"

Jaune was about to continue his yelling when he heard an unfamiliar male voice quietly speaking out just down the stairs. Even over his own shouting, he was able to hear it. He froze in place and fell quiet the moment he heard it.

" _What's all this yelling about?_ "

Jaune slowly turned his head and peered down the flight of steps just below him. Surely enough, he was not alone.

A tall man in a black cloak stood down there, staring right back up at him. He wore a bizarre black hat that looked like something he would find on the stereotypical witch. The most striking feature about the man, however, was his face.

The stranger wore a mask. A detail that surprised Jaune has he somehow did not notice it right away. The mask looked to be made of leather. It was not traditionally colored, though. In fact, Jaune found himself pondering about what sort of animal he acquired the material from as it did appear to be rather exotic.

The mask itself was nothing short of horrifying to behold. While the sewing of the leather was expertly done, the mouth area was what drew most of Jaune's attention. The lips of the mask had been curved upward to form an impossibly wide smile. Two staples, one on either cheek, held that wicked smile in place for all eternity.

A confrontation was the absolute last thing Jaune wanted to deal with especially when it involved this oddball. He gulped and despite his own fear, Jaune was able to formulate a coherent apology.

"Sorry," Jaune said, flinching as he spoke. "It's just, this door is locked but there's someone on the other side that I need to see as soon as possible. You wouldn't happen to have a key would you?"

"I get it," the stranger stated calmly. "Just try to keep it down because people are trying to sleep. If it's a key you seek then talk to Julia."

"Sorry about that," Jaune repeated once more. "I'll go do that then."

Just as Jaune was about to back away from the guardrail that kept him from falling over the edge of the stairs, the stranger spoke out to him again.

"By the way, I've never seen you around here before. Who are you?"

"My name's Jaune. Nice to meet you… uh..."

"Lux. My name is Lux. Oh, and come to think of it. I have seen you once before."

Jaune stood there, frozen in anticipation. He was almost certain they had never met before, but he was intrigued.

"Back in the restroom," Lux informed before abruptly turning away and walking back down the stairs.

Before Jaune could say anything, he heard the loud sound of what he assumed was the door to the eight floor being shut. A lone clicking sound indicated it had also been locked.

Jaune immediately ran back down the stairs. He skipped the door to the eight floor for fear of running into that strange man again, but every following floor, Jaune tested the locks.

Apart from the door leading to the lobby, all of them were locked.

* * *

Jaune reached the lobby and sprinted over to the front desk. Julia did not bother looking up at him regardless of how much noise he made. After realizing that he would probably be waiting for an eternity just to get her to look up from her book, he spoke out.

"The door is locked! I can't access the ninth floor! You got a key right?"

To Jaune's horror, she calmly shook her head.

"What do you mean," Jaune shouted. "You just lock them in at night!? Why do those doors even have locks!?"

Julia lifted up her right hand, revealing a long, rusty key in her palm. Jaune immediately swiped it out of her hand and examined it without saying a word.

"There's the key to the first floor," Julia finally spoke up. "If you want to access the ninth floor, then you need to find the key which will be on the eight floor. If you want to find the key to the eight floor then you'll need to search through the seventh floor, and so on and so forth."

"What kinda system is that," Jaune asked in a frustrated yell. "Why can't you just use a skeleton key or better yet, just leave the doors unlocked!?"

Julia rolled her glazed eyes at him. She looked at him as if he were a common household pest. Not exactly the best customer service he had experienced in his life.

"Did you think it would be so easy," she coldly asked. "You make the effort to show up in that fancy armor of yours and you honestly thought you could just waltz your way up to the top floor, sweep the fair maiden off her feet, and be out the door before dinner? Sorry to say but it won't be that easy."

Jaune glared at the ghostly woman. His eyes darted toward the key in his hand. He let out a defeated sigh, knowing this was going to be all the help he would get. Just when he was about to turn around and walk off, Julia's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"I'll give you one more hint," she said quietly. "You see those doors over there?"

The receptionist then pointed toward the set of double doors on the opposite side of the lobby. The only doors he currently knew of that was would lead back to the outside world, and likewise, back home.

"Those doors are always unlocked."

* * *

After making his way back to the stairwell, Jaune breathed in heavily as he leaned his back against the door and slid down to the ground. He was almost positive that she was up there. He stared longingly up the winding staircases.

If not her, then there was something worth finding. He still wondered if whatever was up there in Room 666 was worth all of this trouble and potential danger. Just about everyone he spoke to on the matter insisted that pursuing such a suspicious letter was not the best of ideas. Jaune recalled the oddly passionate reaction Lie Ren gave after reading that demented parchment. That stuck with him far more than Ruby's attempt to go with him.

Right on queue, Jaune jumped at the sensation of his phone vibrating in his pocket. He figured out what was going on and groaned to himself. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone only to find a message had been sent to him. He read the caller ID, _Ruby_ , and opened the message.

 _"_ _Where are you!? We've been worried sick! Don't tell me you went there alone! Give me the address and we'll be over there to back you up!"_

With a tinge of guilt, Jaune wrote out his own response. He could not quite figure out his own reasoning for not informing anyone else, but he felt compelled to leave the others out of it.

 _"_ _Don't worry. I'm just out with some friends. I threw the letter away. It's cool."_

The second it was sent, he received a response. He was amazed at her ability to type back. He wondered how she even had time to read his brief reply before sending that new message.

 _"_ _No offense, but your small group of friends are all in the room with me. Don't lie to me. Just give me the address or get the hell out!"_

Before turning off his phone, Jaune texted one final message to her. _"Sorry, but I'm not leaving without her."_

He then promptly switched off his phone and shoved it back in his pocket. Jaune then stood up and glinted toward the suspicious door that led down to the basement.

"Well, it could be worse, I guess," he told himself. "I could be going down there."

Jaune then mustered up all his courage and then headed up the stairs, away from that creepy basement.

He reached the first floor and after peeking through the door's window to make sure nothing was preparing to jump out at him, he inserted the key into the hole and unlocked the door. Slowly, he pushed the door open. It produced an eerie and unnecessarily loud creaking sound. He cringed in response.

"Spooky," he told himself as he slipped inside.

He tried to leave the door open just to keep from making any more noise than he already had, but the thing swung shut anyway. Jaune nearly jumped out of his skin when the door slammed back into place.

Jaune scanned the halls around him. There was no one in sight and he wanted to keep it that way. Quietly, he tiptoed down the corridor leading straight ahead as the hall to his right was a bit too dark for his liking.

* * *

Every creek under his feet sent chills down Jaune's spine. It seemed nothing he did was successful in minimizing noise. Jaune assumed it to be paranoia, the few times he saw something move out of the corner of his eye or a shadow dance just as his gaze shifted toward a new direction

Upon reaching the end of the hall, Jaune was forced to make a tough decision. The hall diverted into two paths, one leading to his right and the other to his left.

Cautiously, he stopped just before stepping out into the opening beyond. Jaune did not dare keep walking when he had no idea what could be lurking right around either of those two corners.

His heart began to pound as he carefully checked his corners. He poked his head out and looked to the left but there was no one down that way. Jaune then turned to his right and immediately let out a scream.

Not but two feet away from him stood a tall figure in a hat, most likely male, who was dressed in black. He stood like a statue in front of an apartment door before Jaune started bellowing. The man carried a lever-action rifle in one hand which only made Jaune feel even more threatened.

Ironically, the stranger let out a scream of his own and twirled around to face Jaune which only caused Jaune to scream louder. That, in turn, caused the man to scream louder as well.

A literal screaming match.

Jaune was horrified by the person's face, or rather, his lack thereof. The individual standing before Jaune had no skin on his head. Jaune found himself staring at an animated skeleton. The person had no flesh nor any organs. Only bone.

Jaune completely lost his balance and stumbled to the ground. Eventually, he stopped screaming. The skeleton was pretty quick to stop shouting as well.

"Good heavens, boy," the skeleton stated in a male tone, only confirming Jaune's initial assumption. The skeleton sounded as if he were out of breath despite not having any lungs to speak of. "You scared the daylights out of me!"

Jaune looked as if he were offended by that statement. " _I scared you_ ," he asked in disbelief.

"Kid, you came out of nowhere and started screaming like a lunatic for no apparent reason," the skeleton reminded him. "I'd say that would be enough to give an old man, the heebie-jeebies. _Er… not that I'm old or anything!_ "

Jaune was speechless. He had no idea where to even begin with this situation. His first question had to do with the man's missing flesh but he was far too shaken up to ask.

"I… uh… um… uh..."

His many attempts to say anything all ended in failure.

The skeleton ignored his awkwardness, although, he did seem rather interested in Jaune which probably was not a good thing. The skeleton tilted his skull curiously and spoke out once more.

"Well, you don't look quite dead yet. On the contrary! You look alive to me. What brings you here?"

"I'm looking for someone," Jaune stated.

Suddenly, something clicked. He recalled the lifeless look Julia had in her eyes and her pale complexion. It looked as if she were going through early stages of necrosis. He then remembered the strange man on the stairs, Lux who also did not look quite right.

He stared up at the skeleton. Jaune's brain finally managed to process the fact that this person was not in costume. He was talking to a dead man.

"Wha… where am I?"

The skeleton held out a helping hand for Jaune without saying a word. Hesitantly, Jaune took up the offer and with the skeleton's help, he hoisted himself back onto his feet.

"Name's Morgan! And yours?"

"Jaune."

"Welcome to the neighborhood, Jaune," Morgan politely stated. His tone suddenly darkened after that warm introduction. "So, you're searching for someone else, eh? I should have guessed. There's a heavy cloud of grief looming over your head. Such a thing shouldn't be the case for someone as young as you. Who is this person? Perhaps I can point you in the right direction."

Jaune slowly shook his head. He had to fight back a few tears as he mustered his reply. "I already know where she is. The woman in the lobby told me she was on the top floor. Now, I'm just trying to get to her."

"Already become acquainted with Julia then, have you? Bless her little heart even if she doesn't always like to show that she has one. So, how did you find this place, Jaune?"

The question caught Jaune off guard for whatever reason. He wiped his eyes which had become habit anytime Pyrrha's face crossed his mind. He had mentioned her several times and done just fine up until now. He could not help but wonder why he was only just starting to break down.

"My friend. She sent me a letter telling me to come here. She gave me the address and everything. I thought it was a trap at first, but Julia told me she's here. If that's true then I can't leave without her."

"And this woman just so happens to be on the top floor," said Morgan. Jaune genuinely could not figure out if it actually was a question or a conclusion given Morgan's bizarre tone, but he nodded regardless.

"That's going to make things very difficult for you, kid. I should warn you that not all of my neighbors are particularly sociable. Some of whom are downright deadly, no pun intended of course. Honestly, if your friend was asking you to come here of all places then I wouldn't really call them a friend."

Jaune ignored that last remark. He was still only barely keeping himself together. Between the haunting memory of Pyrrha and the undead man standing before him, he most certainly had a lot to think about.

"Wait a minute," Jaune asked desperately. "You're still not explaining anything to me. Where is here!?"

Morgan pondered his question for a moment. However, it did not take long for him to collect his thoughts and say something.

"That's a bit complicated, especially for a mortal such as yourself. I tell you what, though. I was actually on my way out for a little late night hunting in the woods out back. I also accidentally left my key back at the deer stand. The same key that will get you to the second floor. If you want, you can come with me and we can talk on the way. Otherwise, you can wait here until I get back but I'll probably be gone for awhile."

While nervous about the offer, the thought of already obtaining another key so soon was appealing to Jaune. He covertly touched his blade which was still sheathed at his side.

It gave him all the confidence he needed to simply nod his head.


	3. Little Necromancer

**Little Necromancer**

Jaune followed Morgan through the halls of the first floor. He noticed that they did not take the same route back to the stairwell as Jaune did when he initially entered the first floor. It was only a straight walk back, but Morgan seemed to make it a point to take a longer route.

Jaune listened with boredom as Morgan gave him a general feel for the floor. He listed off the name of every resident in the area and pointed to the door that would lead to the resident in question. Jaune did take special interest into one detail Morgan never failed to mention and that was listing off when they died. Jaune was suddenly reminded that there was indeed a point to him tagging along.

"Hey," he stated, his words silenced Morgan's rambling. "So, what's actually going on here? Why are all the doors locked? Why is there only one room on the top floor? What's so special about it? And why is this place filled with dead people?"

After some silence, just when Jaune was about to repeat himself, Morgan sighed and gave an answer at long last.

"I'm afraid you're no longer in the same world you came from," the skeleton stated. He spoke clearly so he could be heard over the sound of his own bones rattling down that creaky hallway.

"Our little community is made up of those whose time had run out long ago. The people here, much like yours truly, lived out their lives. Some long and fulfilling, others short and miserable."

"How did I end up here without noticing," asked Jaune. "I didn't walk through any portals or do any weird rituals. Do you actually expect me to believe any of this?"

Morgan stopped in his tracks and twirled around, silently reminding Jaune that he was indeed traveling with a reanimated skeleton.

"I do not expect you to believe anything. You asked and I gave you my honest answer. Well, my own understanding at least."

The two kept moving after a few silent seconds. Jaune kept glancing backward, expecting to find someone standing there but he never did. He could not explain this feeling of being watched, but it was becoming unbearable.

Then, as he turned back to face the corridor ahead, he noticed something positioned at the far corner of the hallway. He looked up toward the ceiling and just up ahead was a little camera aimed directly at him. It was posted just underneath the ceiling on at the far end of the hall right next to the door which led to the stairwell.

He stared at the lens for an awkward second or two. The camera remained frozen in place, presumably aimed down the hall but he felt as if it were watching him and him alone. After a brief interval of time passed, the camera abruptly realigned itself into a slightly different position. It was only then when Jaune lost that sense of being watched.

"So, what's up with those cameras," Jaune asked aloud after a gulp. "Who has access to them? Julia?"

"I think she does," Morgan stated as he approached the exit. He then reached out and opened the door. "I believe the top floor has a monitor connected to them as well but don't quote me on that. Why do you ask?"

"Uh, no reason," Jaune said dismissively. He chalked it up to his imagination and headed toward the door at a much faster pace.

"Mortals first," Morgan stated, allowing Jaune a clear path to the stairs.

The skeleton turned after Jaune left and set off for the lobby. He turned and stared at the camera. Surely enough, it was angled in his direction. The camera abruptly turned and realigned itself with the hallway beyond.

Morgan stood there briefly observing the camera before turning around and heading out the door. He made sure to close it as he left.

* * *

Once they reached the lobby, Jaune started noticing cameras everywhere. There was one on each corner of the room, all were aimed straight at him. He ignored them and kept on walking. The duo crept over to Julia's desk.

The woman shot the quickest of glares at them. Her eyes silently warned them not to disturb her. She averted her attention back to her book and kept quiet.

Jaune and Morgan glanced at each other. The two then simultaneously shrugged their shoulders and carried on with their adventure.

They reached the exit and opened the doors. The two stepped out and were immediately greeted by a cool nighttime breeze.

Jaune took a look around, not at his immediate surroundings, but the cityscape beyond this ghostly property. Lights dotted the skyline. It was suspiciously quiet. There was nothing going on around him. No vehicles traversing the streets, no pedestrians, no life anywhere. It was so unnaturally quiet. Jaune already wanted to go back inside.

"Alright, follow me," Morgan stated, his voice piercing the silence like a lance to a wall of wet tissue paper.

* * *

Jaune did as told. He was led around the back of the apartment complex. There was a small clearing behind the building, but just beyond that little open area was a wall of trees. He gulped at the sight of a lonely dirt path leading straight into this eerie forest.

Morgan started off down the path and headed straight for the tree line. A spooky forest was the last place Jaune wanted to visit but if one of the keys truly was somewhere beyond this point then he could think of no better alternative.

Not wanting to be left behind, Jaune darted after Morgan and slowed down the moment he caught up. Jaune turned on his flashlight. At the same time, Morgan pulled out his own source of light and shined it down the dark path ahead.

Jaune kept his eyes peeled for any suspicious movement. He listened to all of the ambient sounds. The crunching of leaves and twigs under his feet only put him more on edge. Eventually, he became so paranoid about seeing somebody standing out there in the darkness that he decided to keep his attention on the path rather than on his surroundings.

They moved on like that for the longest time. Neither of them said a word to each other. However, the silence was eventually broken by Morgan once again.

"So how's the land of the living nowadays? Any better? Any worse?"

"I'd say it isn't looking too good," Jaune remarked after some hesitation. "The city's been compromised from within. It's gotten so bad that I'm honestly surprised we haven't run into any Grimm out here."

Morgan chuckled at the mere thought. "Don't worry about them. You've got far worse horrors ahead of you in these parts."

"You say that and you still go hunting in a place like this," asked Jaune. "So late at night?"

Morgan chuckled, leaving Jaune puzzled as he tried to figure out what was so funny about his question.

"Well, of course! This is the best time to go hunting. So many things happen at night out here. We're bound to find something tonight. Although, I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll worry about that when we reach the stand. Besides, it isn't like we're totally unarmed. Grow some backbone, boy. You'll never get to the top floor with that attitude."

"I'm here, aren't I," Jaune argued. "Anyway, where exactly the key I'm looking for?"

"Should be at the deer stand. Again, it will only grant you access to the second floor, however, the key to the third floor will be somewhere up there. Let's just hope..."

Morgan's words were cut off by an abrupt tune. A tune coming straight from Jaune's pocket. A familiar sound that Jaune recognized immediately. His ringtone.

It was an upbeat piece of music. Although the fact that it was the only sound that could be heard for miles in this creepy forest did not exactly add to the optimistic response Jaune went for when selecting the tone.

"The hell," Jaune muttered as he took his phone out of his pocket. Surely enough, it was on. "How? I thought I turned it off..."

Out of curiosity, he glanced to the top of the screen even before he looked at the caller ID just to verify if he even had a signal. He did not have a single bar of service. He wondered if he was even receiving reception back at the apartments.

Jaune then looked at the number calling him. It was an unknown caller. Jaune scratched his head. He showed the screen to Morgan when a theory came to him. What if the caller was somewhere nearby?

"Recognize this number?"

"No," Morgan stated with a firm shake of his skull. "Probably someone back at the apartments. Maybe even the girl you're so determined to find. On a more important note, I am interested in the company that provides you with that sort of reception. Must be nice to get booty calls all the way out here."

"Shut up," Jaune exclaimed, his face swiftly turning red. He glanced back at his phone just to double check the reception and he still was not receiving any signal.

"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out," Jaune concluded.

He took a deep breath and answered the call. Hesitantly, he pressed his phone to his ear and listened for a moment.

" _Hello_ ," he stammered meekly. He meant to sound a bit bolder when answering but he could not hide his fear.

A second or two passed before he heard anything on the other end of the line. It was dead quiet. Not even any sort of ambient sounds could be heard. Then suddenly, a voice spoke to him and Jaune's heart stopped beating.

 _Alright, Jaune. Just like we practiced..."_

He could recognize that feminine voice anywhere. Jaune's eyes grew impossibly wide at the mere sound of her voice. Morgan, the creepy forest, the ghostly apartment complex looming in the background all faded away for a fleeting moment.

" _Pyrrha_ ," he practically shouted.

"Dammit, boy," Morgan exclaimed in a hushed tone. "Not so loud!"

Jaune looked up at Morgan as he continued listening to the phone. He held up his index finger, indicating for Morgan to keep quiet while he listened. Soon enough, Pyrrha responded.

"Shield up. Keep your grip tight."

Jaune was far too excited to notice at first, but suddenly, he got a strange sense. This all sounded familiar. Very familiar.

"Don't forget to keep your front foot forward."

Then it hit him. He immediately lowered his phone and looked at the screen. There was no video playing. At first, he assumed he might have launched that file by mistake as he was gripping the phone rather tightly and pressing it a little too firmly against his cheek.

Word for word, she quoted that training video. One of the only ways he could still hear her voice and see her face. While she recorded it on his phone specifically so he could practice by her instruction at his leisure, Jaune often found himself watching it without any intent on following those same old basic instructions.

More often than not, he would load it up, set it to loop and simply watch it. When no one else was around, he would sit there on his bed with only the light from his phone to illuminate the room. He would watch it for hours upon hours.

Confused and somewhat disturbed, Jaune pressed the phone back against his ear and listened.

"Ready? Go!"

"Pyrrha," he stated, trying to get her attention. Trying to get her to say anything apart from the lines he had heard so many times before.

"Again!"

"P-Pyrrha," Jaune said in a weak murmur.

"And again."

"Pyrrha… please."

"Okay," she said in that same amused tone. "Now, assuming you aren't cheating… We can take a break."

Morgan watched silently as tears visibly swelled in Jaune's eyes. After hearing the crunching of a few leaves in the distance. He started scanning the surrounding area with his flashlight. Something Jaune picked up on.

As he listened to Pyrrha's voice, he too aimed his flashlight in the woods to his right and started looking around. He was too focused on the phone call to hear anything else, but he assumed Morgan was looking for something. Surely it would be obvious when spotted.

"I know this can be frustrating," Pyrrha said into his ear. "And it can feel like so much effort to progress such a small amount… but, I want you to know that I'm proud of you."

Jaune's focus was torn between the enigmatic phone call and his suspicious surroundings. He twirled around and decided to check the left side of the path while Morgan continued to cover the right.

"I've never met someone so determined to better themselves. You've grown so much since we started training. And I know this is just the beginning."

There was a lengthy pause, during both the call and whatever was going on in the forest around him. Nothing moved. He noticed Morgan shining his flashlight back onto the path ahead. Clearly, the skeleton had lost interest in what managed to catch his attention in the first place.

Morgan turned and gestured for Jaune to follow. "Come on," he murmured. "We've been in one place for too long. Don't fall behind and don't stray from the path. My camp is just up ahead."

As Jaune followed, he heard Pyrrha's voice once again after a moment of silence that extended well beyond that of what he remembered in the original video.

"Jaune. I… I… I want you to know that I'm just happy to be a part of your life. I'll always be here for you, Jaune."

With that, the phone went dead. He lowered it and stared at the message on the screen informing him that the call was ended.

" _Liar_ ," he whispered softly as he shoved the phone back into his pocket.

Morgan slowed his pace after noticing that his conversation had ended. He wasted no time. His curiosity got the better of him.

"So was it her?"

"I dunno."

The skeleton nodded his head as if he knew exactly what such an unhelpful response was supposed to mean. "This place is dangerous for a mortal like yourself. Leave with your life. At least you won't be leaving empty-handed."

"I'll say it one more time," Jaune snapped. "I'm not leaving without her!"

If Morgan had eyes, he would have rolled them.

"I loathe white knights, but whatever you say, little necromancer."

* * *

Spirits traversed the halls without a care in the world. Monsters roamed the forest as if it were normal. Whispers leaked through the walls and bounced off of trees. The moon shined over it all, providing a mere sliver of light into the dark vat below.

A vortex of the paranormal and extraordinary. That is the place Jaune wound up in. He woke up to a strange letter which led him to a forgotten area of town. A place that probably should have remained forgotten.

He soon got an understanding for the strange sense he felt just before entering these cursed apartments. The feeling that he was the last living soul on the planet. Even the mold growing on the walls was not quite alive.

His flashlight reaffirmed it all as he shined it around while he and his new skeletal friend traversed that lonely path. The grass was dead. The trees were stripped of their leaves and left to wither. There was not a single animal's call to be heard as they too were dead.

The plants. The people. The insects. The animals. All of them were gone from the land of the living. Focused and concentrated into this nightmarish bastion for the damned.

Jaune was caught in the middle of it. Of course, he was. The young man was not allowed to catch a break. He roamed through the haunted woods thinking it over. There was something supernatural going on in this place. That much was blatant and apparent to him.

Even if Pyrrha was nowhere to be found, or if it was all some elaborate scheme, he knew he could not turn back now. This place was worth exploring if for no other reason than to learn more about it.

Still, he held onto hope that she was somewhere in the area. He managed to forget about the constant dread that someone was following them through the woods when he started visualizing him leaving with her in hand.

Unfortunately, his fantasies were interrupted when started to think back on that weird call he received.

The phone call made no sense to him. What could have possibly been the point in it? The memories of what happened mere moments ago only served to confuse him. He wondered what would happen if he were to call that number back.

Would it result in the same thing or would Pyrrha actually speak to him? Why did she call him from some unknown number only to recite that training video?

He wanted to ask Morgan about it. He wanted to call that number back right away just to see if she would pick up the phone and talk to him this time, but he did not. Morgan had given him subtle hints along the way that they were being followed.

Jaune wondered if they should turn off their lights and attempt to lose whoever was following them, but it was already dark enough. Turning off the flashlights would only make it impossible for them to see where they were headed.

Jaune kept watching over his shoulder for signs of any suspicious movement. He had quickly become more cautious than ever after that phone call. If Pyrrha was somewhere nearby. If she was able to be found then he would be of no use to her dead.

So he kept his dominant hand on his sword and his off hand on his flashlight. He and Morgan carried on, waiting for something to jump out at them.

Anything at all.


	4. Hunting

**Hunting**

The trip remained mostly uneventful. Jaune kept following Morgan mostly in silence until they finally reached his outpost. Morgan immediately climbed up the latter to a large platform positioned next to a tree while Jaune stayed on the ground.

He took his phone back out of his pocket and looked over the unread messages Ruby had sent him. He wondered how he was actually receiving these messages when his phone was still indicating that it had no signal.

Jaune took a look through the first of a series of messages that had been sent to him since he turned off his phone. He still had no idea how it randomly came to life on him, but that one detail was quickly forgotten about as he started reading these rather strange messages. The further he read, the more difficult it became for him to believe that Ruby was the one who wrote them.

The first one was simple. A response he expected to come across.

 _"_ _Don't tell me you've actually fallen for it! She's dead! Where are you!?"_

The next message was a bit on the odd side.

 _"_ _Oh, I get it, now..."_

Jaune scrolled through the messages. Only four of them were texts. The others appeared to all be pictures she had sent to him for whatever reason.

Aside from being a bit more aggressive than usual, Jaune had no reason to believe it was not her until he started reading further down this chain of texts.

 _"_ _You're gonna fuck the body, aren't you?"_

Jaune blinked in confusion. He attempted to refocus his attention on the message and read over it once again just to make sure his eyes were not playing tricks on him. Surely enough, the contents of the text did not change. He scrolled down even further.

 _"_ _That's why you don't want us around. You want some alone time with Pyrrha's chard corpse."_

In silence, Jaune viewed the next message in this long, disturbing chain. It was a picture. The first of many. He opened the file to see his teammates Lie Ren and Nora standing in what looked like a dark boiler room. Ruby's cheerful face covered up most of the screen.

The next couple of images were the exact same thing over and over again. It was only until he got a little further in that long chain of messages did the picture begin to change. It was subtle. Jaune only noticed it after staring at the image for a little while. The same scene was being depicted but the lighting had changed. There were a few more shadows than he had seen previously.

This continued on until, once again, he found another image where the lighting had been altered again. This time, the picture was looking rather dark but everyone's postures, positioning, and expressions all stayed the same.

The only other time he noticed a change in this repetitive image was on the very last message he had received from Ruby. This time, the picture was the exact same. No surprise there. However, Jaune could not help but notice the more drastic change in lighting. The only light involved with this scene was an extremely dim lamp shining down like a spotlight over them.

Eerie shadows were cast over their faces. He almost did not recognize them. At first, Jaune did not even notice the changes in their expression. Throughout all of the prior images, they had been smiling as if nothing was wrong. A detail that creeped Jaune out given how genuine and serene they looked despite all that was going on. In this photo, however, they stared him down with predatory grins. He could see their teeth lining those enormously wide smiles.

Jaune tried to see if he could spot any other changes in this strange image but there were none that he could identify. He lowered his phone and looked out into the woods beyond. He was so absorbed into that strange experience that he failed to notice the shift in lighting that had gone on around him.

He looked up to the deer stand and guessed that Morgan had turned on a lantern or large light of some sort that was able to illuminate the surrounding area. Jaune also noticed a large black spider dangling from a web just above his head.

With a flinch, Jaune immediately stepped out of the way and over to the ladder. He placed his phone back in his pocket, knowing that while there was definitely something going on with it, he would be unable to solve it.

Jaune cautiously moved up the old creaky ladder and reached the platform above where Morgan was already relaxing on a chair up ahead. Conveniently, there was another seat available to Morgan's right.

The knight hoisted himself up and approached the chair. He felt far more comfortable once he was sitting down. The platform was a bit off. A lot of the wooden planks moved ever so slightly under his feet which did not fill him with confidence about being up here.

"Oh, so you are still alive," Morgan abruptly remarked in a hushed tone. "And here I thought you'd been dragged off by some creature of the night. Never to be seen again. Not like it hasn't happened before, ya know."

"Do you have to start saying stuff like that now of all times," Jaune snarled back. "At least have the decency to wait until we get back to the apartments."

"Keep your voice down," Morgan snapped. "You'll give away our position."

Jaune pointed to the lantern that hung from a branch just overhead. "What are you talking about," he stated in a whisper. "That light is gonna scare them off long before my voice will!"

"I left it on so you wouldn't fall on that thick noggin of yours when you'd try climbing up here," Morgan argued. "Then again, with the way you've been acting, I'd say you're no stranger to brain damage."

"At least I'm not at risk of breaking my hip every time a gust of wind comes rushing through these trees," Jaune snapped back with the first means of insulting his skeletal companion that popped into his head.

Morgan shook his skull. He was almost disappointed by the young man's lousy attempt at firing back. Instead of dignifying Jaune with a response, he changed the subject entirely. Morgan reached for a particularly shiny object sitting on a small side table to his left. It sat next to a row of spare bullets and a pair of rusty gutting knives.

"I also needed to find this," Morgan remarked as he handed the small object to Jaune. As it shined under the light, Jaune realized that the object was a key attached to a ring. He immediately swiped it out of the skeleton's hand and examined it.

"That key will grant you access to the second floor. Of course, I'm not stupid enough to accompany you any further on your journey, Little Necromancer. The most I can tell you is to watch your back. Those who bare the other keys may not always be as cooperative as I am. Oh, and the key ring is on the house. You're welcome."

"Thank you," Jaune replied with a nod of his head. "There would've been no way I would've ever found this thing if it wasn't for your help."

Morgan stood up out of his seat and began turning a knob on the base of the lantern until the light went out. Jaune could not tell if it was the sound of creaking floorboards or Morgan's bones he was hearing.

After the lantern was off, Jaune quickly turned off his flashlight and just like that, they were plunged into darkness.

* * *

They must have sat there in silence for over an hour. The forest was unbearably quiet. Jaune would have been jumping at the sound of twigs breaking if there were any such disturbances to be heard during this time, but nothing happened.

The only sounds filling Jaune's ears was that of his own breathing. There was absolutely nothing going on at his side of the platform. He glanced over at Morgan who appeared to be pretty active at the moment.

The skeleton kept his lever-action rifle in his lap while he stared off in the distance with a pair of old binoculars that he had picked up from off the floor. Several times, Jaune almost gained the courage to ask if there was any movement up ahead, but he always kept quiet. The last thing he wanted was to be yelled at for startling some unseen animal that Morgan had his empty eye sockets on.

Jaune could not quite figure out why he was still here. He had the key. That was all that he came for in the first place. He knew that simply following the trial would take him right back to the apartments. Still, he did not dare move.

He could not muster the courage to traverse those woods alone. He kept telling himself to get over this ridiculous fear and leave but he had yet to move from that spot.

Eventually, Jaune worked up the courage to move, but not stand up. He reached back into his pocket and took out his phone. He aimed the screen away from Morgan so that the light would not disturb him.

Jaune was amazed at the fact that he had only just then thought of calling that mysterious number back to see if anyone would pick up. He navigated to his call history and selected the last entry. That same unknown number that had called his phone during the walk through the woods. He promptly dialed the number and pressed the phone against his ear.

The sound of repeated ringing was a welcome break from the oppressive silence that had befallen him for the past hour or so.

The phone kept ringing. Jaune began wondering if the person on the other end had ever heard of an answering machine. More time passed. The ringing was endless. Jaune eventually hung up after becoming bored of listening to that same tone over and over again.

* * *

Another considerable amount of time marched on by before anything happened.

Just as Jaune was about to fall asleep, something broke the silence. A loud piercing howl. It was unlike any of the wild cries he had heard before. He jolted upright and listened.

It died down all too quickly for him to tell where it was coming from. All he knew was that it happened. He turned to Morgan for answers. The skeleton sat there just as quiet as Jaune for a moment before saying anything.

"Grendel," the corpse muttered. "He must be roaming around somewhere nearby. Be on your guard, boy. Let me know if you see anything suspicious."

Jaune nodded. At that point, he was once again, fully awake.

"How much do I actually need to be looking out for here," Jaune inquired. "Aside from you, Julia, and this weird guy who I think lived on the eighth floor, I haven't met any hostiles."

"You can start by staying away from that freak, Lux," Morgan insisted firmly. "If you can avoid the eighth floor, do it. If you're not entirely opposed to leaving this place entirely, then that would be my first recommendation. Also, try to stay away from Grendel unless you want to be beaten to death. Then there's that crazy woman in the basement. Don't get me started on that undead, psychopathic broad!"

Jaune waved the skeleton away dismissively. "Spooky stuff, but I'll take my chances. I'm not totally helpless out here, ya know?"

Morgan shook his head at that comment.

"Yes, you are."

Jaune ignored his comment. He quieted down for a little while and Morgan went back to focusing on the clearing up ahead. Jaune began to wonder about Morgan's hunting. The skeleton seemed so attentive on spotting potential game.

Eventually, Jaune simply had to ask for the sake of sating his own growing curiosity on the matter.

"So what do you usually hunt for out here?"

"Deer mostly," Morgan mumbled. "Not that I'm opposed to shooting the average monster that stumbles into my sights. Although, I'd think of that as being community service more than sport."

"Monsters," asked Jaune. "Are you joking?"

Morgan shrugged. "How about you go wandering through the woods for a little while and tell me if I'm joking? We aren't alone out here, boy. In fact, we're probably being watched right now."

"Doesn't that bother you? If you're right then we could be attacked at any point."

The skeleton firmly shook his skull. He then nodded toward his rifle which had probably served Morgan long before Jaune been born.

"Not really. I no longer fear the creeps and freaks that reside on the property. That's all they have, you know? Fear. If you don't give them the one thing they crave then they'll never be a threat to you. If you're going to remember anything I'm saying to you now, then let that be it."

* * *

After that one instance, the howling was not heard again. Jaune was eventually able to forget about it. He initially wanted to know more about this person, or thing, Morgan referred to as 'Grendel' but he never asked for fear that his voice would give away his position to whatever made that strange sound in the first place.

The knight almost jumped out of his seat when he heard another abrupt sound, although, this one was nowhere near as intimidating as the last.

Jaune's phone suddenly dinged, informing him that he had received a text message. The screen shined from his palm as a notification popped up. That 'ding' earned him a nasty glare from Morgan, but he ignored the skeleton as the name attached to that message was enough to give him a heart attack. Jaune saw Pyrrha's name and frantically tapped his phone.

The message pulled up with only two words. _"Call me."_

He searched for her number in his contacts and immediately dialed it. Jaune waited in anticipation as he heard the sound of ringing on the other end of the line. His heart was pounding as it kept on ringing.

It did not take long at all for both Jaune and Morgan to hear something in the distance. Jaune lowered his phone to confirm a growing suspicion. Surely enough, he could hear the faint ringing from another phone.

He kept listening and naturally turned to his right after realizing which direction it was coming from. He could hear a phone ringing somewhere out in the woods beyond. As he scanned his surroundings, Jaune noticed Morgan abrupt lean forward and point toward a particular area in the forest.

Jaune followed his finger with his eyes until his gaze fell upon a very small blue glow shining brightly in between two trees a good distance away from the platform.

Suddenly, the ringing stopped. Jaune moved his phone back up to his ear only to hear Pyrrha's answering machine. He hung up the phone as the automated voice read off the same number he was trying to get a hold of and called again.

During this process, Jaune noticed that the blue glow faded from view.

He called her phone once more. After a second or two, that strange blue light lit up again and he heard that faint ringing not coming from his own phone but in the same direction as that light.

He had no trouble putting two and two together. Her phone was out there. Why? Jaune did not care to reason at that moment. Acting only on impulse, he darted out of his chair and headed for the ladder.

"Idiot," Morgan snarled. "Don't go down there! The hell is wrong with you!?"

Jaune ignored him, responding only by barking out an order as he climbed down to the ground.

"Just cover me! I'll be right back!"

Morgan got up and propped his rifle against the waist-high wall of planks that lined the edges of the stand. He used his free arm to shine his flashlight down into the woods and watched as Jaune sprinted ahead.

Morgan groaned at the sight of him.

"Guess it's true what they say about blonds."

* * *

The more distance Jaune cleared from Morgan's platform, the slower he started to move. His confidence left as the light from Morgan's flashlight grew fainter.

He pulled out his sword and kept moving. The phone stopped ringing and so he simply stopped his tracks, dialed it again, and resumed his search.

It only took one repeat of this process before he reached a very small clearing. He was forced to use the light from his phone to reveal what was ahead as he so brilliantly left his flashlight back at the deer stand.

Jaune got close enough to see the phone dangling in front of him. It was not propped up on anything. It was sitting there in the air somehow at the same level as his head. He moved closer. The light of his phone quickly illuminated the object that was holding it in place.

Jaune backed away in horror at the sight of a hand wrapped around it. He held back the urge to scream as he stared at the disembodied forearm that hung by a rope from a tree branch. The arm was cut just below the elbow and left to rot there. Dried blood covered the decaying flesh. Jaune saw no sign of the rest of the body.

The phone stopped ringing, but Jaune had already confirmed its location and he could see quite clearly now that it was indeed Pyrrha's phone which was sitting in the long-dead palm of that dismembered hand.

Dark theories began cropping up in his mind. He examined the arm to see if he could determine the gender of who it belonged to but it was no use. He could barely see a thing. Jaune started to panic at the thought of that arm belonging to Pyrrha.

"No," he whispered to himself. "No… Please… No..."

He thought back to the messages Ruby had sent them. Even though her caller ID came up, there was no way she sent them. It was not in his nature, that much Jaune was sure of. He tried to rationalize this situation as well.

Somebody else must have been messing with him. Luring him out here with this twisted decoy. Jaune took another look at the phone. It was the exact same model Pyrrha had. It was virtually identical to hers but there was no way for him to know for certain.

Before Jaune had time to contemplate the grim situation any further, that blood-stained phone started ringing again. The screen lit up once more with an alert informing him of the incoming call. It came from an unknown number but it did look familiar to Jaune for some reason.

Hesitantly, he took the phone from the dismembered arm and answered the call. He held the phone up to his ear but kept it a safe distance to avoid touchy any of the old blood that stained the device.

A voice spoke up before he had the chance to say 'hello.'

"Alright, Jaune. Just like we practiced."

It was that same speech he heard a thousand times before, although, this time he was absolutely certain that Pyrrha was not the one saying it. The words were spoken by an unnaturally deep voice. A sort of tone that a person would have to strain to achieve or, more realistically, use a voice changer.

The stranger spoke slowly but Jaune could hear him clearly over the sound of random static that was being picked up somewhere in between him and the person on the other end of the line. Jaune promptly turned away from the arm just so he did not have to look at it.

"Who is this," Jaune stated firmly. Of course, he received no answer.

Jaune started hearing the suspicious sound of rustling leaves the moment he turned his back. In fact, he heard it all around him. He saw shadows moving along the trees out of the corner of his eye, but he was far too focused on the phone call to care.

"Shield up. Keep your grip tight."

Before Jaune could ask that same question again, he heard a gunshot shatter the silence of the surrounding forest. Jaune felt a gust of wind against his cheek which was accompanied by what sounded like someone tearing a piece of paper right next to his ear.

Jaune turned around after he heard a loud crashing in the leaves. He stared down at a dead body. A person that had been standing directly behind him. The stranger was lying flat on their back. They stayed motionless. Not even twitching.

Suddenly, Jaune spotted anywhere between six to ten shady figures jumping out from behind various foliage and nearby trees and bolting off into the depths of the woods.

He had no chance to so much as get a look at any of them and he could only barely make out any details about the corpse at his feet. Of course, Jaune wasted no time trying to figure anything out. He immediately turned and sprinted back toward the light.

* * *

Jaune made his way back to Morgan at full speed. He did not so much as look back to see if he was being followed. Although, with the fact that Morgan had not fired another shot, Jaune assumed he was safe.

He slowed to a stop after his eyes locked with the skeleton above him. Only with Morgan in view did Jaune decide to look over his shoulder, but there was nobody in sight. Whoever or whatever those entities were, they did not show any interest in pursuing him.

"Still feeling confident, boy," Morgan called out to the knight below, almost mockingly. "Still intending on sticking around?"

Jaune turned to face the skeleton. He hesitated as he tried to focus on Morgan's question. "Yes," he exclaimed. "Who the hell were those guys? Did they follow us out here or something?"

"How should I know?"

"Let's just get outta here," Jaune pleaded. "There's no sense in staying here after that!"

Morgan abruptly tossed Jaune his flashlight. The boy barely managed to keep it from hitting the ground. A broken flashlight was not something Jaune wanted to deal with at the moment.

"Then go ahead," Morgan announced, much to Jaune's shock. "I'll be here for another couple of hours. I'm here to hunt and that's exactly what I'll continue to do. You know the way back. Just follow the trail and it will lead you straight back to the apartments. If you don't stray from the path then you should be fine. Turn your back on the trail and you'll find its all too easy to lose yourself in these woods."

"You're seriously going to stay out here!? I don't even know how many more of them were out there! It must have been ten or more of them that ran off when you shot the first one! They could come back!"

Morgan shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "A few monsters aren't going to scare me. Anyway, I know there's nothing I can say to convince you to just go home. You're too stubborn for that, so I'll part you with some advice. Watch your back out there, Little Necromancer."

"Is that it," Jaune asked in disappointment. "How about you tell me a shortcut to the top of the apartments!? Surely you've got some info on whatever these things are, right!?"

"Obvious advice, I know," Morgan proclaimed, completely ignoring Jaune's questions. "But you clearly needed to hear it since you were almost ambushed from behind. However, you'll find that more than vigilance, bravery will be your greatest ally. The road ahead is ruled by twisted creatures who've spent far too much of their life beyond the grave in this dreadful purgatory. Creature's that want to make your life miserable and strike fear into your very soul. Of course, I've already shown you that they can indeed be slain. So, just remember..."

The skeleton hesitated for a second or two before concluding his brief speech. He held his rifle up in the air as if he were just waiting for an excuse to use it. Whether it was a visual attempt to motivate Jaune or perhaps himself remained unclear.

"Show no fear in the face of evil!"

There was a particularly awkward pause before Morgan abruptly lowered his rifle and cleared his throat… Even though he did not have one.

"Well, carry on then," the skeleton dismissively stated. He then promptly shooed Jaune off with a wave of his hand before turning around and heading back in the direction of his chair. "I'm sure we'll meet again at some point. If you don't get brutally murdered, that is."

"Uh… thanks," Jaune hesitantly replied. With not much else left to do, he started off back down the same path that led him to this secluded area.

With his flashlight in one hand and Crocea Mors in the other, he cautiously walked through the forest. What laid in wait up ahead, Jaune could not say, but if past experiences were anything to go by, he would assume it to be nothing good.


	5. Alone

**Alone**

It did not take long at all for Jaune to start hearing noises as he made his way back to the apartments. Leaves rustling. Twigs breaking. Feet hitting the ground directly behind him. Of course, every time he would turn around and shine his trusty flashlight down the path he had just traveled, there was nothing to be seen.

While Jaune definitely wanted to full-on sprint back to the apartments, he remembered just how long it took to reach the deer stand. Knowing it would be the same distance back, he decided to conserve his energy in case he actually needed it.

Every once in a while, Jaune would switch off his flashlight when he knew the path ahead was a straight line and there were no bends or turns he would need to look out for. He did this whenever possible just for the sake of losing any potential followers which he felt were always upon him.

Soon enough, Jaune stumbled upon another long stretch of the path which he felt confident navigating in the dark. So, he promptly scanned his surroundings before turning off his flashlight. He then proceeded forward at a bit slower pace to reduce any noise he would make as he made his way forward.

"Maybe this was a mistake," Jaune nervously thought to himself. "As soon as I turn this light back on, someone will be standing there."

He walked a few steps further before his curiosity got the better of him. He switched on his flashlight only to reveal an empty path up ahead. He shook his head violently as he turned it off once more and continued walking.

"I should think more positively," Jaune murmured, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice more than anything. "When I get done here, I'll be so cool. They'll call me… _Jaune the Monster Slayer, Jaune the Fearless,_ or something sick like that. Pyrrha will be so impressed..."

His motivational speech to himself was ended the moment Jaune picked up on something in the distance. It sounded like footsteps following close behind. He was not making too much noise so it was easy to differentiate between this and his own feet hitting the ground.

Jaune stopped for a moment and listened. Suddenly, that gust of bravery he was previously experiencing disappeared as if it were never there. He kept wanting to turn around but he was too afraid to give away his position.

The second he halted his movement, that separate set of footsteps fell silent.

"One of two things are entirely possible right now," Jaune whispered to no one in particular. "Either I'm going crazy or someone is following me. Here's hoping I'm just crazy."

Jaune swiftly twirled around and shined his flashlight back down the path he had previously walked. Of course, to both his relief and confusion, there was nobody around.

His hand started to shake along with his whole body. The light bounced around to the various trees surrounding the path but he could not see another soul around, yet the feeling that he was not alone was undeniable at that point.

After giving his surroundings just one more scan with his flashlight, Jaune finally saw something. A dome-like figure just barely peeking out at him from behind a nearby tree on the left side of the path. He shined his light directly on it and stared it down. It looked like a head. He took a few steps forward to get a closer look and confirmed that to be the case.

A lifeless human head staring blankly not at him, but at whatever was ahead of it. The monster's eyes were motionless and wide. Its skin was gray and pale, lacking any signs of proper blood flow.

Jaune immediately backed away. Instantly, the head ducked back behind the tree. He heard the sound of something running off into the darkness. In which direction, he could not be certain but he was not too keen on sticking around and figuring that out.

He took that as his opportunity to run.

* * *

Morgan listened to another loud howl that shook the quiet atmosphere out of existence. Morgan took a special interest in where the howling was coming from as he already knew who was producing it.

He stood up out of his seat and turned back toward the apartments. He walked over to the edge of his stand and shined his flashlight down the same path Jaune headed down not too long ago.

"Grendel," he murmured. "How the hell did you manage to get behind me!?"

" _Excuse me_ ," a woman's voice called out from below. Very little could give the skeleton a good shake, but that genuinely frightened Morgan.

He lowered his flashlight as well as his rifle in the direction of the voice. The light illuminated, not a monster, but an unusually normal looking girl who appeared to be around Jaune's age. She had red hair done up into a ponytail, large emerald eyes, and an odd set of armor adorned on her body.

"Who are you and how long have you been standing there," asked Morgan, his tone with a certain demanding nature to it.

"Sorry if I startled you," she said, averting her eyes.

Just when Morgan was about to assume her to be another lost mortal, he noticed something. On her chest was a narrow hole as if someone had put a bullet through her heart, or perhaps even an arrow. Blood stained the surrounding area of her body. She was as pale as a corpse, most likely because she herself was a corpse. Just like him.

"My name Pyrrha, and don't worry, I only just arrived."

That name sounded familiar and it was not long before Morgan figured out where he had heard it from. The skeleton still did not lower his rifle. He stared down at the girl and gave her a disapproving shake of his skull.

"I believe a friend of mine is looking for you," Morgan announced. "If I'm talking to the right person, that is."

"Blond hair, right," asked the ghost. "He wears a set of armor and carries around a sword and shield?"

"That would be him,"

"I knew you must have seen him," Pyrrha stated with a growing smile. "I saw you two on the security cameras. I wanted to thank you for keeping an eye on him for me. I know he can be kind of a handful at times."

"So that was you watching us," Morgan stated with a cynical tone that did not go unnoticed by Pyrrha.

She nodded her head. "Jaune wouldn't happen to be up there with you now, would he?"

"You just missed him," Morgan informed. "He went looking for you."

"Which way did he go?"

"Why should I tell you that," Morgan inquired, a question that left Pyrrha speechless.

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha finally managed to respond. "But is there a problem? I just need to see him again. If you point me in the right direction then I can hopefully catch up to him before..."

"There absolutely is a problem," Morgan interjected sternly. "You're the one who lured that boy to this awful place. Why? I'm not sure but I know it can't be for any sort of benevolent reason. You've led a mortal to the apartments. Do you realize how dangerous this place is for him? Do you even care or is that danger part of your plan?"

Pyrrha stood there in silence for a moment. She looked around in confusion before she was able to fully understand what he was accusing her of.

"Jaune and I are close," she argued. "Or at least… I'd like to think we are. I only needed to speak to him. I had no intention of putting him in the way of any danger. However, if you would just tell me which way he went I can help him avoid local dangers!"

Morgan scoffed at her lousy retort. "My five-year-old son was a better liar than you. No, my dear, I won't be telling you much anything. Now, if I were you, I'd turn around and go back the way you came before I decorate the nearest tree with your brains."

While both shocked and appalled, Pyrrha did not argue any further. Although, she did begin to wonder if that threat was supposed to be some sort of hint for her. After reaching this conclusion, she did exactly as told, heading back in the direction of the apartments.

"Think I'm stupid!? I know who you are," Morgan muttered to himself after the ghost disappeared into the darkness. "And I know you aren't who you appear to be."

* * *

After that little encounter, Jaune decided to keep his flashlight on at all times. He had not run into any trouble since and while he was constantly expecting an ambush, never once did he encounter another monster.

Were it not for the forest around him being so creepy, he might have considered this a pleasant late night stroll.

He carried on down the path without any sign of hindrance on his progress. As he moved through the woods, an idea suddenly struck him like a lightning bolt. The realization forced him to stop in his tracks.

"I wonder if there's a fire escape I could use? Why would I even need to bother with these keys when I could just scale a fire escape? Surely they have one!"

As Jaune pondered on that topic for a few seconds, the silence of the woods was abruptly ended when he heard an extremely loud howling. It was the same sort of howl he had heard back at the deer stand. This time, however, it was not some distant, ambient sound in nature. It was far too close for comfort.

Jaune turned back and stared down the path behind him. He shined his light through the trees, but he could not see anything moving around. He decided it best not to stick around so he picked up the pace a bit.

Unfortunately, it would not be long before he started hearing something else in those dark, definitely haunted woods. He was confused by it at first. It sounded close and came from out of nowhere. Once again, he stopped and scanned the surrounding tree lines for the source of the disturbance.

Someone was crying. It sounded like an infant's sobbing. Jaune pinpointed at least the location of where it was coming from. Just behind a tree, directly to his right. Jaune slowly stepped away from the tree. The thought of a baby actually being lost out here did not so much as cross Jaune's mind. He was more concerned about a monster baby attempting to lure him into the woods.

Carefully, quietly, Jaune backed away. As he headed down the road, his flashlight revealed something hiding behind that tree. When he reached a certain angle, a face was abruptly exposed in the light. He only saw a flash of it before it retreated into the darkness but he knew it was different from that weird head he saw earlier.

The crying immediately stopped. Jaune stood perfectly still with his sword drawn and pointed at the tree. A moment later, before Jaune had a chance to even lower his guard, a strange looking creature or object abruptly flew at him from the other side of the tree. It buzzed as it whipped through the air like a hornet, but it was noticeably larger than any insect he had ever seen before.

Jaune dodged its advance and stumbled to the left while the creature flew over his head. He twirled around and shined his light on the monster that had already landed on the ground just up ahead. After seeing it, he felt like running.

It was a baby. It had the face and upper torso of a baby, at the very least. Its arms were more insect-like and its lower half resembled that of a wasp's abdomen and stinger. It had a pair of semi-translucent wings on its back and impossibly sharp teeth. A long, black, forked tongue flickered in and out of its monstrous jaws wildly as if the monster was using it to smell the air like a serpent.

While simultaneously trembling, Jaune readied himself in the best possible fighting stance he could procure while facing off with this nightmarish opponent.

One final detail Jaune noticed before the monster flew back at him for another attempt at taking his life was its eyes. They were oddly familiar. He expected them to be black or some other demonic color, but instead, they were merely green. Bright, vivid green. He had no time to fully examine the creature. It flew at him once more.

Jaune barely missed it with his sword as it flew past him. Instead of landing, the creature turned itself around in the air and charged him again. Jaune dropped his flashlight and engaged his shield, but not in enough time to block the creature's path to his face. This otherworldly aberration landed on Jaune's head and tore into his shoulder with its alien teeth.

Suddenly, the trained huntsman appeared to have forgotten all of that training. He dropped both his sword and shield and flailed in a panic as he attempted to grab and fling the creature off of himself. Jaune took hold of the monster with both hands, but he was unable to liberate his shoulder without a significant amount of flesh being torn right off the bone.

He bolted for a nearby tree when he realized that his strategy was not going to work. Jaune ran straight into the trunk of the first tree to cross his path. The monster finally released him as it let out a pained, unholy screech.

Jaune stumbled backward and started searching for his sword. He was starting to regret abandoning it. The first thing he spotted was the glow of his flashlight. Jaune immediately lunged forward and picked it up off the ground.

Swiftly, he searched the dirt road for his sword. It was not difficult to find once his source of light was obtained. The glimmer of metal as it was hit by light attracted Jaune's attention. He had no idea where the monster was at that point. He stopped paying attention to it and bolted for his blade.

The buzzing of insect wings filled his ears once again. He took up his sword and swung it in the direction of the buzzing only after waiting for it to get a bit closer. Miraculously, Jaune felt his blade hit something.

Blood sprayed out in the air as the monster flew over Jaune's head and slammed into the ground a little ways behind him. Jaune shined his light on the creature that laid wounded in the dirt. It started crawling away from him. Jaune quickly noticed the damage done to the creature's right wing and arm and realized why it was not attempting to fly back at him.

The creature laid on the ground. It was still very much alive. That much was obvious to Jaune. The insect-like monster moved about on the ground in a growing pool of its own blood. So quickly did the fight unfold and end. Jaune was both amazed and relieved.

As he attempted to understand this creature, Jaune realized that it was well beyond his comprehension. It started to cry like a regular infant. It did not take long before it began driving Jaune crazy. He had to put it down lest he hear that crying for all eternity.

Jaune hesitantly approached the creature. He still expected it to jump up at him, but closer and closer he came and yet it still never lashed out. Jaune raised his sword above his head and aimed it at the back of the creature's head. It kept on whining and whining. The sound was invading Jaune's mind and piercing his soul. It had to end. It simply had to end.

With a shout of exertion, he buried the sword into the monster's mushy head. Finally, the forest fell silent again. Plenty of thoughts rushed through the boy's head, but only one of many stood out to him.

For some reason, he could not shake the feeling of familiarity he got as he stared down at the corpse. Its eyes and strands of blonde hair stood out to him. He could have sworn he had never seen that child before, but Jaune felt as though he had.

He stood there, looming over the corpse, trying to catch his breath. Jaune was not given much time to collect his thoughts. He heard rummaging in the leaves all around him. Once again, the forest was coming alive with movement and sound.

Jaune picked up his shield and ran for it. He did not care how much noise he made at that point. He could hear the stomping of feet against the dead leaves and branches that littered the ground closing in from behind. It was obvious that he was being chased. By what? He did not care to find out. By how many? He could safely assume it was more than one.

As Jaune ran further and further down the path, he started seeing pairs of eyes watching him from the shadows. They were briefly illuminated by his flashlight as he passed them by. Jaune had a feeling he was being watched ever since he set foot in the woods. At least he knew that he was not wrong.

His heart raced as he tore through the woods as fast as his legs would allow. Nothing but panicked thoughts of being tackled and eaten alive were on his mind. At first, he was content with simply running forever. However, such an idea did not last.

Eventually, Jaune slowed to a stop and turned back. The sound of footsteps chasing him ended quite a while ago. At that point, he was left in a familiar blanket of silence. When he shined his flashlight down the road, he realized just how empty it was.

"I couldn't have imagined it," Jaune told himself. He scanned his surroundings to confirm that the coast was clear, and surely enough, it was.

There was not a single pair of eyes to be seen from beyond the tree line. There were no monsters chasing him, and no demonic babies attempting to bite his jugular. It was as if nothing had even happened.

Jaune was alone, again.

* * *

 _Note: If the baby monster looks familiar, then you've probably played DOOM 3 because that's where I stole it from... uh... I mean, that's my source of inspiration for this totally original monster design._


	6. The Cosmic Vampire

**The Cosmic Vampire**

Jaune could not help but cheer at the sight of the apartment complex. He made it back in relatively one piece. He turned around in an attempt to admire the distance he cleared. Such a long walk through monster-infested woods and yet he was still breathing.

The moment Jaune twirled around, that cocky smile faded. He let out a horrified scream and stumbled to the ground at the sight of someone standing right behind him. His sword fell next to him with a loud clang. Were it not for the stranger immediately speaking to him, Jaune would have grabbed it and plunged it forth on instinct.

" _I'm sorry! Are you okay?_ "

That voice was unmistakable, as sweet and soothing as he remembered. Jaune froze in place and looked up. The crimson hair was an immediate giveaway.

"Pyrrha," Jaune exclaimed in shock. "I-is that you!?"

The girl loomed over him with a slight smile that almost betrayed her concerned tone. Regardless, Jaune was too lost in the moment to realize it. She extended a helpful hand and Jaune was eager to take it. Her palm felt cold to the touch. His own body heat felt as if it were being pulled toward her.

It only lasted for as long as it took Jaune to stand but he was shivering by the time he stood up. It was not as if it were chilly that night. The interaction left him baffled.

"There you are," Pyrrha said with a relieved sigh. "You've been running all over the place. I was worried I wouldn't find you in time."

"Uh," Jaune stammered. He tried to say something until he realized that he had nothing to say. He was utterly speechless.

He wanted to take her up in a tight embrace and never let go, but he noticed the hole in her chest and the old blood that stained her pale flesh. Her lack of body heat was another strong indicator of the fact that she was indeed dead. Like Morgan, she was just another soul lost in this weird purgatory.

"I'm so glad you're here," he finally blurted out. "Come on," Jaune demanded as he grabbed hold of her wrist. "We have to get out of here!"

Without warning, Pyrrha slipped away from his grasp. Jaune had no idea how she even managed it as he was holding onto her so tightly. Despite this apparent fact, she removed her hand from his with ease. It was as if her wrist briefly phased out of existence and reappeared at her side. Jaune did not even feel her slip through his fingers.

Something was wrong. Was just because she was a ghost, or something else? He could not say for certain.

"Later," she reassured. "Come on! Follow me up to my room. I'm sure you could use a rest after murdering that helpless infant in the woods."

"Uh, pardon," Jaune asked. He blinked in confusion. He was baffled by her statement. "I didn't kill any babies. Only a monster that looked like a baby."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Pyrrha repeated in that sweet tone of hers. "I misspoke. Anyway… uh… um…"

She kept pausing for some reason. She seemed to want to say something but either had forgotten it or was trailing off. Eventually, she remembered what she was going to say.

" _Jaune_ ," Pyrrha exclaimed.

Did she just forget his name? It would have been an incredible blow to his ego if it was not so suspicious. Pyrrha did not seem like the type of person to forget a name. Especially given that they were teammates and partners no less.

"How about you follow me," Pyrrha continued. "Like I said, there's so much we need to discuss."

"That's ridiculous," Jaune retorted. Pyrrha responded with a sharp glare.

"Let's just go," he nagged. "You can tell me on the way! Come on, there are monsters out here!"

Pyrrha gave him an uncharacteristically detached shrug of her shoulders. "You afraid of a couple monsters?"

"Yeah! Actually, I am!"

" _Whatever_ ," Pyrrha dismissively stated. Her voice sounded slightly deeper but it quickly reverted to her normal pitch. "Just follow me. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get this shit over with."

"Uh… okay..."

Jaune's initial happiness to see her had quickly been replaced with suspicion. Jaune could not remember a time when she had said something in such an aggressive and vulgar manner. He watched as she marched on past him and headed around to the front of the building. She did not even walk normally. Pyrrha seemed to move with an unusual sort of confidence. Overconfidence.

Regardless, he knew it simply had to be her. She looked exactly as he remembered… minus the early stages of necrosis. Despite the obvious, Jaune felt a need to at least test her. Surely a few questions would set his mind at ease.

"So, Pyrrha," he asked aloud.

Pyrrha turned and gave him an innocent smile. "Yes?"

"It's going to be weird having you back," Jaune admitted. "We'll have to explain all of this to the rest of the team. Who do you want to talk to first?"

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. Jaune could have sworn he saw her cheery smile fade for the faintest of seconds as she studied him with aggressive and threatening eyes.

"Oh," she said with a brief giggle. "All of them. I hope to see all of them as soon as we get back! I've missed you all so much. Especially you, Jaune."

"All of them," Jaune inquired in a slightly cynical tone. "You mean, _both_ of them?"

Pyrrha frozen and glanced around nervously. "Right! All… _two of them_ ," she exclaimed hesitantly before continuing down the path. Jaune was quick to follow her.

At that point, Jaune was becoming very nervous. None the less, he pressed her further. He spent a moment thinking up of a way in which he could at least get her to name one of their teammates. Then it came to him.

"Who do you want me to call? I can have one of them pick us up."

"Call them both," Pyrrha said agreeably. "We can wait in my room until they get here."

His initial plan totally failed, but Jaune was quick to find a way around it. "Guess I should give _Ryan_ a call since… uh… _Nancy_ never picks up."

"Oh, Nancy," Pyrrha added with a comical shake of her head. "Still missing calls is she?"

Jaune did not respond right away. His stomach sank like a rock. As they made their way up to the front of the entrance, Jaune noticed a camera hanging above the door on the right-hand side. It watched him closely. He could see the lens focusing in on him and Pyrrha.

It made no sense. This person or thing looked exactly like Pyrrha. They even acted a bit like her but there were faults in their acting here and there. At first, he did not want to say anything. However, the fear of where this would lead was far greater than simply confronting 'Pyrrha' over the matter.

She stood in front of him, staring at the door. Suddenly, she turned her head upward and faced the camera. A twisted and enormous toothy smile took shape on her face. Her smile seemed impossibly wide. An insanely wide smile that left Jaune baffled with how she even managed to pull it off. She stared up at the camera with sadistic glee as if mocking whoever was watching them.

"Uh… Pyrrha," he finally muttered after taking in a long, fearful breath.

"Yes, Jaune," she said sweetly.

"Her name is Nora."

Pyrrha stood there, frozen. "I'm sorry?"

"Our teammates. Their names are Ren and Nora. You should've known that. Pyrrha wouldn't have forgotten that. She wouldn't have forgotten my name, either."

He could hear a sudden cracking sound. It filled his ears and forced him to cringe in disgust. The distinct sound of bones cracking and been bent out of place.

Pyrrha slowly but surely turned her head completely around without ever moving her body. She spun her head completely backward just to face him. That same crazed smile remained plastered on her face. Her eyes were wide and solid white. Her pupils and irises were entirely gone.

She started cackling aloud. This time, her voice was different. It definitely was not Pyrrha's voice as it was distinctly male.

" _Gee_ ," the monster spoke out as he tried to control his laughter. "And here I thought my acting skills had improved. I gotta know… What gave me away?"

* * *

Julia remained unmoved from her spot behind her desk. Even with the growing commotion echoing into the lobby from outside, she did not much interest in her surroundings.

The only event which ever managed to get her to look up was hearing a series of footsteps approach the desk. She glanced up to see Lux looming over her with that creepy mask on his face. She carelessly looked back down at her book and merely huffed to at least acknowledge his existence.

"Did that kid already leave," Lux inquired.

"Went outside with Morgan," Julia murmured. "I'm sure he's dead by now."

"Why?"

She glared at him briefly before returning her attention to the book on her desk. "Dracula dropped off his rent and followed them."

"Very weird," Lux stated with growing interest. "The thought of him actually paying rent without being threatened this time is definitely out of the ordinary."

"I told him the other day that I would break his legs if he didn't turn it in on time," Julia corrected him.

Lux nodded as the story seemed to check out at that point. It was nothing he had not heard before. He looked toward the front door. A smile as wide as the one on his mask crept across his face.

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to lend a helping hand. Wouldn't you agree?"

Julia rolled her eyes but did not argue. A helping hand from Lux was not what she would normally consider a good thing, yet she did not retort. She merely kept to herself and continued to tune out the whole world.

* * *

Jaune was utterly frozen in fear. This strange entity stared him down with a crooked smile and psychotic confidence. The creature turned his body around, aligning it with his previously dislocated head. Silence befell the two for a moment until the entity standing in between him and the door spoke.

"The name's Dracula," the fiend said with a snicker. "I know, I know. Couldn't be more obvious if I tried, but it's not like we pick our names. Could've been worse, though. I could have been named Alucard."

Dracula suddenly stopped laughing and started glancing around nervously, as if expecting someone to show up. A couple seconds of awkward silence and Dracula let out a relieved sigh. "Uh, anyway..."

"Nice to meet you," Jaune interjected. He smiled hesitantly at the entity before him. "My name's Jaune, but you already knew that. _So…_ wanna be friends?"

"Not really into the whole 'friend' thing," Dracula stated with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Nothing personal, just not my cup of tea. However, that living energy exuding from that fleshy shell of yours is looking pretty tasty right now. Gimme!"

Jaune tilted his head curiously at the creature. "Huh? What do you mean? I've got lunch money if that's what you want. You can have it, man. I don't want any trouble right now."

"Do I look poor to you," Dracula snapped.

The knight immediately shook his head. He wanted nothing more than to de-escalate the situation if such an option was even possible. This was definitely a very different kind of monster. The mere fact that he was using Pyrrha's face was demoralizing enough.

He wore a cruel smile and had a murderous look in his eyes. A look that Jaune would have never associated with that face.

"I said, I want your life energy," Dracula explained. He crossed his arms and sighed to himself. "And now that I've said it aloud it actually sounds incredibly weird, so I'm just gonna eat you now. Hold still."

The knight glanced up at the camera positioned just above Dracula. It was rapidly turning back and forth. Someone was clearly watching him, and whoever it was appeared to be trying to tell him something.

Jaune promptly deployed his sword and shield and braced himself as Dracula lunged at him. Jaune was the first to lash out. He swung his sword forward the moment Dracula stepped within a comfortable range. Somehow, his sword did not make contact. Jaune blinked in confusion after realizing this. Upon second glance, his opponent appeared to be approaching him from a slightly different angle than before.

Did the creature dodge his strike? Jaune honestly could not tell for certain as he did not see Dracula do much of anything aside from move forward. Jaune attempted to back off but his reaction time was far too slow.

He felt a hand dig into the right side of his torso and grip his flesh tightly. His shield was apparently useless, as Dracula was able to dance around it with impossible ease. Jaune did not even see him clear that obstacle.

Jaune screamed as he felt Dracula's grip practically melt his flesh. He could not begin to wrap his brain around what was going on. The only thing that was obvious was that the monster's mere touch seemed to be vaporizing anything in its way. His fingers sank into Jaune's side. In a frenzy, Jaune kicked Dracula in the stomach which sent the monster sliding back.

Dracula refused to give Jaune even a second to breathe. The enigmatic entity practically flew at Jaune, throwing a barrage of wild kicks and punches his way. Within a second, Dracula had completely disarmed him.

Jaune plunged his sword forward, but Dracula successfully dodged that strike as well, only to respond by kicking his wrist which sent his sword flying upward. He followed that up with another kick to Jaune's torso.

Forced to continue backing off, Jaune tried to use his shield. Dracula's foot slammed against his shin not once but twice in a row with Jaune unable to so much as see it coming. Dracula then took hold of his shield as Jaune stumbled forward.

The two entered a game of tug-of-war over the massive hunk of steel. Dracula eventually managed to push it out of the way long enough to deliver a violent punch to Jaune's face along with a couple kicks to his arm. It was enough to get Jaune to drop his shield and resort to the same hand-to-hand combat Dracula seemed so keen on using.

It only hit Jaune when it was far too late, but he realized just how underprepared he was for any sort of hand-to-hand encounter. Pyrrha mostly trained him on how to use his sword, and he only ever bothered to build upon what she had shown him. Naturally, he was at a complete disadvantage.

All he could do was block Dracula's swings. Unfortunately, Jaune was not very good at defense without his shield. Dracula eventually struck another blow to his chin and from there it was easy.

He punched Jaune multiple times on the left side of his torso. Jaune briefly doubled over in pain before forcing himself to fight through it. He managed to strike Dracula in his jaw with an open palm. That was the best he managed to do.

Frustrated, Dracula leaped in the air and spun himself around. One of his feet hit Jaune upside the head with enough force to knock the night off his feet and send him spiraling towards the ground.

Of course, Jaune's opponent landed on his feet as if it were no problem. Jaune, however, did not get up.

Dracula's smile grew at the sight of Jaune lying face down in the grass. He let out a mocking laugh for the sake of adding some metaphorical salt to those not so metaphorical wounds.

"You ain't that good at fighting, kid. I honestly hope you didn't pay someone to train you because if I was in your shoes, I'd be lookin' for a refund."

Dracula waited to see if Jaune would offer a response, but the boy remained motionless and unresponsive.

"You dead or something? Stop being dramatic! I didn't hit you that hard."

Just when Dracula was becoming disappointed, Jaune forced himself to stand up. Dracula promptly started cheering at the sight of him rising from the ground. Jaune had already proven himself to be a novice fighter at best, but he was at least not quick to give in.

"Oh, I've got a trooper on my hands! Good to see you're not a total pussy! Ready for round two? Perhaps you can learn a thing or two about how to _actually_ fight."

Jaune still did not have the energy to reply. He merely stood there, panting heavily as he resisted the urge to collapse. It was obvious, even to him who had already won, but none the less, he charged forward.

In reality, he practically threw himself at his opponent rather than run. Dracula's smile grew darker at the sight of him closing in rapidly.

Microseconds before Jaune was able to reach Dracula, the door opened behind them. The sound caused enough of a disturbance to cause both of them to stop and turn.

A man dressed in black, wearing an odd leather mask stood in the doorway, blocking their path to the lobby. Jaune and Dracula both recognized him immediately, but Dracula was the only one to associate a name with that masked face.

"Lux," Dracula snarled. "What do you want!? Can't you see I'm busy!?"

The sketchy looking man reached in behind his cloak and pulled out a wooden cross that had been sharpened to a point on the bottom. With a roll of his eyes, Lux silently shoved the cross forward which, for some reason, caused Dracula to hiss like a distressed snake.

His face which, up until then was a pretty good copy of Pyrrha's transformed into something hideous and demonic. A cloud of black dust or gas suddenly surrounded him and expanded outward. Within seconds, the smoke had cleared, revealing only a small black bat fluttering in the air where Dracula was previously standing.

"Goddammit," Dracula's seemingly disembodied voice suddenly shouted from out of nowhere. "That was my meal for the night!"

Jaune was still locked in a daze. At first, he did not even see the bat. His eyes eventually focused back in and he was able to spot it. The voice sounded as if it were coming from the bat's direction, but at that time, Jaune did not have a hope of understanding the situation he was in.

"Lux, you're a fucking asshole," the bat screamed in rage.

The bat started flying upward. Given the direction it was flying, Jaune assumed it was heading to a higher level of the apartment complex. It would not take long for the bat to completely disappear into the nighttime sky.

"Still alive, I see," Lux remarked.

Jaune slowly nodded his head. At first, he was apprehensive toward this strange man he met on the stairs. The thought of this weirdo watching him while he was in the bathroom was more than enough to reinforce Jaune's caution, but at that point in time, Jaune did not care who saved him. Of course, the mere fact that he had to be saved for the second time in one night was beyond frustrating.

"Sorry about him," Lux continued in that eerie voice of his. "We've all got that one rude and insufferable neighbor, right?"

Jaune did not respond. Instead, he looked up to that suspicious camera hanging above the door frame. It no longer shook itself as if it were signaling for him to run or fight. It simply stood there, focused on him. Watching him.

Briefly, he entertained a thought.

 _"_ _Is Pyrrha watching me?"_

It was a comforting thought, but he wiped it from his mind. He knew that probably was not the case. Knowing his luck, it was some monster watching his every move, waiting to strike.

* * *

 _Note: I've been wanting to write a vampire story for a while, now, but I was never sure on how to go about it. I know I would want to keep a lot of the classic tropes like crosses, holy water, wooden stakes, garlic, and mirrors._

 _Whatever it would be, you could expect it to take a lot of notes from my favorite vampire movie, The Lost Boys. Aside from Blade (the first one) I honestly can't think of even a halfway decent vampire flick that has come out since._

 _Then again, that isn't saying much because almost nobody is doing anything with vampires anymore. I think part of that can be blamed on the Twilight series. I won't bother harping on it too much because it's such a dead meme, but it really did get me to hate vampires for a long time. It was only until recently when I started reading I Am Legend when I remembered that vampires can, in fact, be scary. Who knew?_

 _I decided to include Dracula as an antagonist after reading it and I did want to some experimenting before I plunged head first into a whole project about vampires. Dracula was originally a character I thought of for an old Trigun project that I deleted a while ago. I do have plans to revitalize that, but Dracula has been cut from that story so it made sense to me that I include him here._


	7. Floor 2

_Note: This chapter was supposed to be released on Halloween. Better late than never, though!_

* * *

 **Floor 2**

The bleeding finally stopped after Jaune was given the tools needed to bandage up the holes Dracula left in his side. He sat on the ground with his back leaning against the front side of Julia's desk. Lux looked down at him with that eerie mask still concealing his face.

Jaune's intuition was screaming at him, but he ignored his own gut feeling. After all, this individual, regardless of how creepy he and his strange mask were, Lux did indeed save him. That was more than enough confirmation that he had made a new friend, or so he desperately hoped.

"Keep that cross on you at all times," Lux advised after a silent moment of uncomfortable staring had passed. "Some garlic would also do you good. Dracula hates the stuff for whatever reason. I once made garlic bread and left it here in the lobby for everyone. I was told that Dracula had some sort of seizure after taking a bite. So that might also help you."

"I'll keep an eye out for some," Jaune weakly replied. "Thanks for the help. Uh, by the way, which floor do you live on?"

"I reside on the eighth," Lux said, almost with a sense of pride in his tone. "And no, you cannot have my key."

Lux promptly walked away without saying another word. Jaune would have pressed him further had he not been so lost for words over nearly being eaten by that enigmatic creature. Soon enough, Jaune heard the door leading to the stairwell firmly shut.

After he left, Jaune remained seated there for some time. A few minutes passed before he decided to stand up.

He turned himself around and used the desk behind him as support. Once he was back on his feet, his pained gaze met Julia's cranky glare. She said nothing and swiftly shoved an envelope in his face.

"You've got a letter," she flatly remarked after Jaune freed it from her aggressive grasp. "When you see your ditsy girlfriend, tell her that my dumbwaiter isn't meant for passing notes."

Jaune nodded and backed away from the desk. His heart started beating rapidly as he made progress in liberating the letter from its envelope. His hands shook as he tried to free the letter from its paper prison.

He unfolded the letter and noticed that the handwriting matched the small note he received earlier that led him to this hellish complex, to begin with. He read over it, ignoring the multiple scratched out words that littered the page.

 _"_ _Jaune, it's me. I'm so sorry I asked you to come to this place. I had no idea it was so dangerous. Please, just..."_

The rest of that line was completely scratched out and while Jaune could still make out some words better than others, he ignored it and continued on.

 _"…_ _I wanted to see you at least one more time. Thankfully, I have access to the cameras so there's no reason for..."_

Once again, the entire second half of a sentence was scratched out. Jaune immediately glanced toward the nearest camera that was set up in a corner overlooking the lobby. The lens was aimed directly at him. He tried to ignore it as he resumed his reading.

Jaune could not help but notice the conclusion of the letter. The handwriting in the last couple of lines were drastically different from what he had just read. The first half of the letter was written with straighter lines and more uniform letters. The second was a bit messier and the individual letters were slightly larger.

Pyrrha never wrote anything down for him. He had no idea what her handwriting was supposed to look like. The knight chalked it up to the possibility that hers was simply inconsistent and read on.

 _"_ _Meet me on the second floor. Room 404."_

* * *

Jaune was not so quick to believe this letter. He made his way to the second floor regardless as he already needed the next key.

Slowly, he trotted up the stairs. This time, he remained vigilant. He never allowed himself to drop his guard. Luck and the goodwill of others were the only things keeping him alive through his previous mistakes. Knowing full well that he was on his own, he made sure to be thorough.

Whenever a shadow moved out of the corner of his eye, Jaune stopped and turned just to make sure he was not being followed. Once he reached the door to the second floor, Jaune fumbled through his pockets. When he did not find them right away, he had a miniature heart attack. The thought of losing that key was far more frightening to him than any monster jumping out at him from the darkness.

The knight let out a long sigh of relief when the tips of his fingers brushed up against the set of two keys buried deep in his left pocket. He pulled them out and examined them. They were not labeled and they looked identical. Without a clue as to which one was the correct key, he took a guess.

The first attempt failed. He tried the next key and it clicked after one quick turn. With the door unlocked, Jaune removed the key and carefully placed the ring back in his pocket. Despite the fact that he had already unlocked the two corresponding doors, he still did not want to lose them.

Just in case.

* * *

The second floor was exactly what he expected it to be. A series of desolate, poorly lit corridors illuminated only by the odd fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling. A majority of them were either broken or simply switched off. The whole place looked like an office complex after having closed down for the night.

Every door was closed tightly. Not a sound could be heard. Not a single hint of life could be felt. In short, it was exactly what he experienced on the first floor.

Quietly, Jaune moved forward. He kept his eyes open for any signs of danger as he pressed on.

He turned down corridor after corridor. After a certain point, he started to question if he was going in one big circle or not. The halls all appeared to be relatively identical. However, a quick glance at the room numbers was more than enough to assert the fact that he was indeed in a new area. He had been keeping track of that little detail.

Jaune finally noticed a room at the very end of the hall. The room was clearly marked with the foreboding numbers, "404."

Jaune glanced over his shoulder out of sheer paranoia. Nothing was there. Of course.

He noticed a camera positioned in a corner of the hall just next to the door, watching him. Its lens shifted as it focused in on him. He glared back at it as he slowly approached the door.

"This is a bad idea," he muttered to himself as he turned the doorknob. It was unlocked.

He thought about turning back, but the thought of someone going out of their way to pose has Pyrrha in a letter only to lead him to such an obvious, out of the way trap bothered him. It was probably Dracula. He could think of no other person who would actually do this.

Jaune took the wooden cross out of his pocket and readied both his sword and shield. Slowly, he turned the knob until he heard one final click. He cautiously pushed the door open, revealing not some dimly lit apartment, but an entirely new hallway. There was not a single ray of light, neither artificial or natural to be seen up ahead. Only a wall of uncompromising darkness.

Jaune fumbled between everything he was already holding just to whip out his flashlight. He switched it on and shined the light into this pit of nothingness. The walls were not made from the same sheetrock as the rest of the complex seemed to be.

They were crafted with rustic metal. There no doors on either side of the corridor. No decorations to be seen. Only rust and emptiness made up the path before him. His light could only reach so far before it gradually faded out. Jaune could not see the end of the hall from here. It seemed to stretch on and on forever.

The blond knight glanced back to the camera that was still watching him from above. Once again, it was shaking itself back and forth as if to tell him not to proceed for whatever reason.

Out of frustration, he gripped his sword tightly and hoisted it upward, impaling the device. It promptly stopped moving after that.

The thought of someone watching his every move was unsettling. He had no way to know if it actually was Pyrrha, but he was not willing to take the chance. With that out of the way, he felt a little more confident about proceeding onward.

Jaune marched on. Expecting nothing less than the very worst.

* * *

A lone television acted as the only source of light in an otherwise pitched black room.

A young woman with vivid red hair was in the process of pulling said hair out of her head. She clawed at her scalp nervously as she watched the screen. The television depicted a blurry black and white image of a familiar looking blond knight standing in a doorway leading straight into an unknown area.

"What are you doing, Jaune," she murmured aloud. "Just go away! Please, go home! "

I'm an attempt to gain his attention, she grabbed the odd looking remote and fiddled with the controls. The screen started moving back and forth in response.

Jaune suddenly looked up. Pyrrha felt as though he was looking straight at her. Her heart skipped a beat.

The moment was ended all too quickly, however, when Jaune pointed his sword at the camera. Before her brain had a chance to comprehend what was about to happen, he plunged the blade forward and the screen went dark.

Pyrrha could see nothing but static. The camera that acted as her window to observe Jaune's activity had been destroyed.

She sat there, mouth agape in pure astonishment and confusion.

"Wha... Why did you do that!?"

* * *

The hallway stretched on forever. No matter how far Jaune walked, he never could find the end of this bizarre corridor. It was not exactly a quiet adventure, either.

Between Jaune's boots landing against the metallic floor, producing an obnoxious echo, and the strange sounds he heard in the distance, Jaune was growing increasingly paranoid. It sounded as if someone was operating heavy machinery in the distance. He could hear the faint sound of industrial equipment and moving metal parts somewhere up ahead.

He picked up the pace a bit.

Once in a while, he would stop for a split second just to make sure he was not hearing footsteps closing in behind him. He did not have the courage to shine his flashlight back down the same path he came.

The further Jaune went, the dimmer his flashlight became. It was subtle at first. A change he only barely noticed, but eventually, the throw on the flashlight started to dwindle to a noticeable degree. He could no longer see as far down the corridor as he initially could.

Jaune stopped and examined his flashlight. He tried shaking and hitting it, but it changed nothing.

"No, don't tell me its the batteries. That's the last thing I need right now!"

Jaune turned back and looked down the part of the hallway that had already been traveled. He had been walking for a while to be sure, but he had no way of knowing how much further he needed to go to reach the end of the hall.

"Surely, I've gotta be close," he thought to himself. "Whatever, I'll see what's at the end of this path and then I'll haul ass back to the main floor."

Just as he turned around to resume his journey, Jaune's heart stopped and his blood ran cold. His flashlight began flickering but that was not what had him caught off guard. Just beyond his flashlight's reach, barely poking out of the shadows was a dark figure.

It looked like the shadowy outline of a man. Someone or something that stood on two legs. A towering, slim individual who stood there in front of Jaune, as unmoved as a statue.

Suddenly, Jaune's light went out. Just like that, he was plunged into darkness. Panic and fear filled his heart. He stood there in place, shaking.

He turned and blindly ran for his life. It was a straight shot to the exit, but he could not see the light of the exit. Regardless, it mattered not. He could not stay in that same place. He could feel a presence advancing on him quickly.

Faster than he could possibly flee from it.

* * *

A brilliant ray of sunlight combined with the sudden ring of an alarm clock was more than enough to wake Jaune up. He pushed the multiple layers of white blankets and sheets off of himself and threw himself upright.

He took a look around. The confusion began to set in and immediately overtook his drowsiness.

Jaune found himself sitting in an unfamiliar bed, placed in an equally unfamiliar bedroom. The walls were as white as the sheets. The sunlight peeping in through the blinds of a nearby window to his right was just as sterile and white as everything else in the room. It was a combination of the same paper white color and light shadows that gave the room such a sterile feel.

Everything shined and glistened as if it were all just built yesterday. A total contradiction to everything he had seen thus far in the apartment complex.

Jaune ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to remember how he wound up in such an odd place. He remembered running through that dark corridor but his mind started drawing blanks after that. He simply had no idea how he ended up in this bed.

He had no clue where this room was even at. Was he still at the apartments? It boggled his mind to no end.

Jaune suddenly slammed his hand on the white alarm clock sitting atop the ivory bedside table to his left after the sound started to get to him. He stumbled out of bed and managed to find the door after some fumbling around in this monochrome room.

Jaune emerged from the bedroom and stumbled into what looked like the main living space. The moment he entered the living room, Jaune heard a barrage of clapping come from seemingly nowhere. It was the strangest thing he had ever heard. He jumped in fright and looked around.

He scanned the room from corner to corner but he could not pinpoint the source of this clapping. It was as if there was some invisible audience spectating his actions.

Eventually, the clapping died down. Everything went silent. Jaune's eyes soon fell upon an equally bizarre sight.

Sitting on an all-white sofa in the middle of the all-white living room was a person. At least, Jaune thought it was a person. A person wearing both a formal suit. The detail that caught Jaune's attention, however, was not the suit but the entity's head.

The creature had the body of a man, but the head of a rabbit.

Jaune was at a complete loss for words.

"About time," the rabbit man announced. Breaking the awkward silence. "Did you enjoy your coma?"

Suddenly, wild laughter filled the room. The unmistakable sound of an audience laughing only left Jaune even more bewildered.

"Who's laughing," he silently asked himself. "That wasn't even funny. What alternate hell-dimension have I stumbled into this time?"

A knock came at the door. Both Jaune and the rabbit turned in the direction of what Jaune guessed was the front door.

"Just in nick of time," the rabbit announced. "Go on, Jaune. You can thank me later."

Jaune genuinely did not know how to respond to the enigma sitting on the sofa. He could at least figure out that someone needed to answer the door and the rabbit made no effort to do so.

Jaune darted for the door and jerked it open. His jaw dropped at the sight of a head of long red hair done up in a ponytail. His eyes met with Pyrrha's emerald orbs.

Before he had a chance to speak, the apparently invisible audience sounded off with another barrage of clapping. Jaune continued to stare blankly at her even after the clapping died down.

She looked like a doll. Her eyes were empty and Jaune was tempted to reach out and touch her just to make sure she was not made entirely of plastic. She genuinely did look like nothing more than a life-sized toy to Jaune.

Jaune jumped when he felt an elbow nudge against his back.

"Go on," the rabbit muttered from behind.

When or how the rabbit managed to get right up on Jaune without the boy even noticing remained a mystery.

"Say your line! Don't make me restart the scene!"

Jaune simply had no idea what to say or what this rabbit was talking about. Since when was he given lines in advance to say in this exact situation.

When Jaune was unable to say anything, the rabbit sighed in disappointment.

"Little shit," he suddenly hissed into Jaune's ear. "Next time, look over the script before you walk out of the bedroom!"

Jaune suddenly felt a strange sensation in his back. The feeling of a blade being slid into his flesh. It took him a while to realize that he had been stabbed, but when the pain set in, it was unmistakable.

He gasped as the knife was ripped from his back. Jaune stumbled and collapsed to the ground. He landed on his back with the rabbit looming over him, holding a bloody blade in hand.

The creature's head transformed. It was disturbing enough already given that it was quite literally the head of an oversized rabbit. However, when Jaune got another look at the monster, he could see the sort of demonic appearance the rabbit had taken on.

His mouth was wide open, revealing rows of jagged teeth. He had a long tongue and his eyes shifted from black to a fiery red.

Silently, the rabbit dropped to his knees and lowered his head down to Jaune's torso. He suddenly sunk his teeth into the boy, ripping through his plated armor, shirt, and flesh all the same. All Jaune could do was scream as the aberration took chunk after chunk out of him. He could see his own intestines being ripped free from his torso and swallowed whole by the beast.

Jaune's vision began to fade as he lost consciousness. Between the rabbit eating him alive and Pyrrha looming over the gory scene without so much as flinching. She stared off into space without blinking. She did not seem to acknowledge the horror unfolding at her feet.

Eventually, Jaune was just barely able to see them. A series of cords holding Pyrrha upright as if she were a puppet. Strings that held up a large plastic doll designed after Pyrrha's likeness.

"What's the point of it all?"

Jaune wondered this to himself. He was too confused fully grasp what was happening to him.

 _"What's going on!?"_


	8. Room 404

**Room 404**

The sound of an obnoxious alarm clock filled Jaune's ears. The loud ringing caused him to sit upright and shriek. Jaune gripped his stomach just to make sure his organs were still attached to his body, and preferably, still hidden underneath his skin.

He was amazed when he felt his torso. There were no gaping holes in his stomach. No fountains of blood pouring out of him.

Jaune immediately switched the alarm off. For a second time, it had annoyed him to the point of nearly breaking the thing. Cautiously, he took a look around.

It was the same room he woke up in last time. Nothing changed. The colors remained the same, or rather, the lack thereof. The door leading to the living room was shut. Not a single thing was out of place. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Jaune noticed his sword and shield leaning against the wall just to the left of the door. He then realized his own fatal mistake of neglecting to grab them the last time.

"Did that really happen," he asked himself. "… _What_ just happened!?"

Jaune did not want to take any chances after recalling that horrific dream, or at least, he hoped it was nothing more than a dream. A twisted nightmare that felt a little too vivid to be a mere concoction of his slumbering mind.

He jumped out of bed and grabbed his sword and shield. After arming himself, he carefully opened the door and stepped outside.

He spotted the familiar rabbit-headed man sitting in that exact same position on the couch. He heard that exact same laugh track sounding off from the depths of oblivion. Jaune did not dare give the rabbit enough time to react. As the creature turned his head, Jaune charged forth.

Before he could even reach the halfway point between the doorway and the couch, the rabbit sprang into action. The laughter was cut short as the two met in a ferocious engagement.

The rabbit crawled toward Jaune at full speed, moving on all fours. His demonic claws dug into the white carpet. His head quickly transformed into that same monstrous image from before.

Jaune held up his shield as the rabbit leaped toward him. He blocked the monster's path and as the rabbit clang to his shield, while he continued in his attempt to reach Jaune's face, the knight slammed his shield into the ground. The rabbit found himself sandwiched between the shield and carpet.

As Jaune felt himself falter in his swift yet impossible move to simply crush the monster underneath his shield, he backed off. The rabbit launched himself upright with a simultaneous kick of his legs. Jaune took the opportunity to close the distance. He lowered his shield and swung his sword toward the aberration.

He swung far too early. The rabbit had no need to dodge that.

In the blink of an eye, the rabbit took out a small knife. Presumably, the same one he used to stab Jaune in the back. The rabbit flung the knife toward his opponent. Jaune felt a sharp sting in his left thigh as the knife stuck straight into his flesh. He stumbled forward.

It was all the rabbit needed to slit Jaune's throat with his razor-like claws. Blood sprayed from his jugular. The blond continued stumbling forward a few feet until he finally collapsed face first to the floor.

"Stop fighting," a familiar male voice called out, filling Jaune's ears during his dying moments.

He panted heavily as he spoke

"Neither of us go free until the show is done!"

* * *

Jaune heard the sound of ringing in his ears. It pulled him back to the world beyond the grave. His eyes shot open. He turned over and slammed his hand down on the alarm clock for the third time.

He sat up and instinctively felt his neck for any signs of a split in his flesh. There was nothing. He felt totally normal.

Jaune was not so quick to get out of bed at that point. He took his sweet time. He rubbed his fingers against his eyes as he thought back on what just happened.

 _"_ _Alright, what's going on!? This doesn't make any sense! I know that just happened! I died again! That dude got me twice! Does that mean I'm dead for good!? Will I be trapped here forever!?"_

Jaune took a couple deep breaths to calm himself. It worked to an extent.

"That thing said something about reading off lines. Is there a script I'm supposed to follow? Am I a guest star in Hell's most popular sitcom or something?"

His first instinct was to search the nightstand drawers. Surely enough, Jaune was greeted by a packet of papers in the top drawer. He pulled it out and read over the title.

 _"_ _Series Finale: Conclusion."_

Jaune flipped to the first page. He could tell by the formatting that he was indeed looking at a script of some sort. He saw his name and another individual listed next to the lines of dialogue. _Jack_.

"Is Jack the rabbit," pondered Jaune. "Hmm… Jackrabbit..."

He noticed Pyrrha's name typed out next to some of the lines further down the page. He scratched his head at that. He wondered how that was going to work if it was nothing more than a doll dressed to look like Pyrrha. Jaune ignored it and continued reading.

He flipped through to the next page, and then the next, and the next. There were ten pages in total. The lines were not too bad in terms of him being able to commit them to memory. However, from the little context the script gave him, it did not look like the best ending the writer could have come up with.

"It just ends here," Jaune asked aloud as he scanned the last line of dialogue and instruction on the page which were written for him. "Talk about anticlimactic. Was the show canceled out of the blue or something? _Uh…_ Oh, what do I care?"

Jaune dropped the script on the bed and resumed his rummaging through the drawers. The top drawer was empty so Jaune moved to the bottom. He pulled it forward and noticed an old newspaper sitting there. He picked it up and scanned the headlines. One of the titles caught his eye above all others.

 _"_ _Actor Falls to Untimely Death during Stage Play!"_

He only took the time to read the first few sentences which immediately described a rather gruesome death involving an untied shoelace and poorly positioned pike. Eventually, Jaune tossed the newspaper on the bed and picked up the script once more.

"Whatever," he grumbled as he looked over the lines. "Guess it's worth a try so long as I get out of here in one piece."

* * *

The next couple of hours passed and Jaune still had only half of the script memorized. He had done plays before when he was extremely young, but never had he been left alone to rehearse. He found himself trying anything and everything to master his lines.

He propped up that old newspaper on a nearby lamp, using one of the photos of some random stranger as the face of his imaginary partner. Repeatedly, Jaune read off his lines and imagined the picture reading off the corresponding bits of dialogue in response. That idea proved to be far more trouble than it was worth as he began confusing his own lines with those of his co-stars.

Jaune gave up after trying to create several different techniques with the limited resources he had available. He still only had half of the script memorized, but an idea hit Jaune. He grinned at his own genius and walked over to his sword and picked it up. Jaune placed it in the sheath at his waist and headed out the door.

* * *

Once more, Jaune entered the living room and was greeted by that same barrage of clapping that came from somewhere in the ether. The laughter died down, and just like before, Jack turned to face him. He waited for the clapping to die down before he spouted his first line.

"About time! Did you enjoy your coma?"

The invisible audience responded with a torrent of laughter. The joke did not so much as earn a grin from Jaune. Hearing it a second time did not make it any funnier.

Still, Jaune said nothing. He had nothing to say at that point.

Once the audience fell quiet, a knock came at the front door. Jaune glanced towards the door. Nervousness hung over him like an oppressive storm cloud.

"Just in the nick of time! Go on, Jaune. You can thank me later."

Jaune hesitantly headed for the door as instructed by the script. As he listened to the silence that surrounded him, he felt awkward. Surely, he could have said something as he made his way to the door but the script had nothing for him and he was too afraid to improvise lest he is murdered again.

Jaune opened the door and was greeted by that doll again. Even more obnoxious clapping sounded off for a few moments. Jaune waited for it to stop so that he could say his first line.

"Oh, Pyrrha," Jaune announced with fake astonishment. "Had I've known you were coming, I would have jumped out the window."

The laughter started up again and Jaune was left puzzled. Was that supposed to be a hilarious joke, too? Was there a sign posted somewhere, instructing these people to react in a certain way? Was it a soundboard, or was the audience so brain dead that they would laugh at just about anything? It remained a mystery to him.

"Good work," came a whisper from behind. Jaune followed the voice with his eyes and he could just barely see the rabbit standing behind him. "Keep it up and we'll both be out of here in no time."

By the time Jack had finished speaking, the crowd stopped laughing. Jaune sprang into action with his next line.

"So, uh, what do you want?"

Jaune was cut off as Jack attempted to shove him out of the way. That too was part of the script and it was the moment Jaune was waiting for.

"Jaune," Jack stammered during the artificial struggle. "How about welcoming our guest into the..."

Jaune took the opportunity to pull his sword the instant he cleared enough distance. Jack was facing away from him, but his arm was still pressing against Jaune's shoulder. This gave the knight a clear view of Jack's side. With just enough trust earned, Jaune slicked through the rabbit's torso. Blood spewed everywhere and Jack fell to the ground.

He kicked himself away from Jaune until his back was pressed up against a nearby wall. Jack left a trail of blood on the otherwise sterile carpet.

"Y-you fucking idiot," Jack exclaimed. He had trouble speaking as his own blood started to fill his throat, but he still managed to get his point across.

Jaune pointed his sword at Jack's neck, instantly cutting him off.

" _Explain_ ," Jaune ordered. "Why did you send that letter? Don't play dumb, I know it was you! How did you set all this up!? What's going on!?"

"Ask the producers," Jack coughed. "I'm only an actor!"

"Not good enough!"

Jaune moved his sword toward his victim's shoulder and impaled him. He yanked his sword back out of Jack's shoulder the moment he felt his blade strike the drywall behind him. The rabbit let out an inhuman yelp of agony. Jaune's hand began shaking at the sight of his own action. Despite trembling, he knew he could not back down.

"We're in the same boat," Jack exclaimed. "Read your damn lines! Just play along! I did most of the work! This worthless series is almost over! I'm almost free! Just read your fucking lines!"

With nothing blocking Jaune's path to freedom apart from a creepy doll that he could easily shove to the side, his mind was already made up. In one final swing of his sword, he severed the rabbit's head from the rest of his body. A fountain of blood sprayed from what used to be his neck. The white walls were quickly painted a hellish red.

Jaune ran without so much as bothering to go back and grab his shield. He threw the doll out of his way and started off down that long dark corridor.

* * *

Those distant industrial sounds grew closer and closer. The sound of metal slamming against metal filled Jaune's ears. His flashlight still refused to work. He was left running blindly through this enigmatic hallway.

He could feel the walls moving inward. Jaune debated throwing down his breastplate just give himself the ability to run slightly faster without being weighed down by heavy armor.

"Where's the exit!? This shouldn't take so long!"

Jaune panicked as he ran away. For once, he wanted nothing more than to see those quiet, lonely halls that made up the different floors of the greater apartment complex.

He ran a bit farther. He had no way of keeping track of the distance he was covering or for how long he had been running. Jaune glanced over his shoulder constantly, but every time, he could still vividly see the light from the door that would lead him straight back to the apartment.

Finally, he worked up the courage to stop fleeing. He turned around, and as expected, he could see the open door. The light from the apartment illuminated the doll that had been shoved into a wall. Those glistening, artificial green eyes stared at him. Jaune examined the amount of space in between himself and the door. He kept that vision in his mind as vivid as he possibly could and then proceeded onward.

Another ten or so minutes of running had passed and Jaune decided to stop for the second time. He turned around and gasped.

It was as if he covered no ground at all. For roughly ten minutes, he sprinted forward. The corridor was a straight line from what he could see which made him confident that he was not running around in circles somehow.

Despite these facts, Jaune found himself no farther from the door than when he had resumed his running. It seemed as though after a certain point, Jaune was simply not allowed to flee any farther from the set.

"Goddammit," Jaune snarled. Out of desperation, he bolted toward the door, gritting his teeth furiously.

"Is this the wrong way or something!? _Why is this happening!?_ "

* * *

Jaune leaped over the trail of blood as he entered the living room. He scrambled to find the proper way out. He ran toward the center of the living room where his heart skipped a beat. He noticed a sharp pike sticking out of the floor just in front of the couch. He never noticed it before.

It stood up to Jaune's waist and was pointed in his direction. A jagged metal pole that served no purpose to the scene other than to be a safety hazard. Jaune attempted to simply run around it, but all the while, he failed to notice that his shoelace was untied. His left foot just so happened to land on said shoelace and when he jerked his right foot forward, Jaune immediately lost his balance.

He fell forward and was unable to regain his footing. He did manage to stumble a bit as he attempted to keep himself from slamming face first into the carpet, but that only put him in an even worse position. Instead of landing on the soft, clean carpet and suffering from a minor embarrassment that no one but he would ever know about, he landed on the pike.

His armor offered no protection whatsoever. It ran him straight through. His heart was obliterated as he fell further down onto the pike. His sternum shattered. His spine was split in two.

The pike did a good job of breaking his fall. Slowly but surely, he slid down and stopped just before his nose could make contact with the ground.

The lights started going dim. Jaune could not tell if it was just his own consciousness fading or if the set was about to be reset again. A huge pool of blood collected beneath him. The only thing allowing him to see his vague reflection in that dark puddle was the pike itself.

Jaune tried to pull himself off of it. If not to give himself a chance to somehow patch himself up, then to at least end the suffering. It was an unbelievable pain. The pike was not exactly sharp, to begin with. It had a rather blunt tip that was unable to simply slice through his flesh, bone, and organs. Instead, it tore through him.

It broke his bones, it crushed his organs, and it tore open his flesh. To top it all off, the pike burst forth from his back and now towered over him, covered in a thick sheen of the wannabe hero's blood.

The blond soon lost his ability to hold his head up. He slumped over and fell limp. The last thing he saw was his loose shoelace lying there in the crimson puddle beneath him. Even when trapped in that state between life and death, Jaune could already hear the sound of that alarm clock going off.

It was all going to reset again. He only wished his memories would do the same so that he would not be able to think back to this ungodly pain. Regardless, he looked forward to a reset for many reasons, but one stood above all else.

This hero, this mighty knight in shining armor come to save a damsel in distress from otherworldly horrors just so happened to leave one of his shoes untied. He just so happened to not notice a pike sticking out of the ground in front of him until last minute, and by pure coincidence, he managed to trip on said shoelace and fall straight to his death.

It was not the sort of ending he had hoped for. Had he have not been in so much pain, he might have cracked up a bit at his own mistake.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of sitting there in pain; Jaune's vision faded as he breathed his last breath.


	9. Series Finale

_Note: Been a while has it not? Almost an entire year if I remember correctly. I actually had half of this chapter last November, but I kept forgetting to write it. Either way, this story is not quite dead yet and I figured there would be no better time than to revive it on Halloween since that is the entire theme of this work._

 _This whole thing has just been a nod to David Lynch's Rabbits. This segment of the story was one of the first things I had planned out for it._

* * *

 **Series Finale**

Jaune stared at the script in front of him. He spent hours trying to memorize it from cover to cover. It was not incredibly long, but it was still a challenge.

Only once he was confident that he would not mess up a single line of dialogue did he bother to leave the bedroom.

Just as Jaune was about to embark on his next attempt to escape, he stopped in his tracks and noticed one of the drawers on the desk was just barely cracked open. The same drawer where he found that old newspaper.

Jaune ignored it and marched on toward the door. He simply had more important matters to attend to.

* * *

The moment Jaune emerged from the bedroom, Jack immediately turned, already anticipating an attack.

He did not move from his seat. He did not stray from the script at all, but he was clearly not willing to let his guard down just because Jaune hadn't charged him yet.

Hesitantly, the rabbit went through his same old lines. The laughing and clapping resumed as if all was well. The room itself was back to its usual pristine condition despite previously being painted in blood mere hours ago.

The two stared each other down. Jack was hesitant to say his lines as he was probably waiting for Jaune to attack him. This in turn only made Jaune more paranoid as well. There was no telling if the man was going to preemptively attack him simply out of fear of becoming the victim. So, unless the script called for it, Jaune would keep his distance.

The opening scene played out in the exact same way as it did previously. All the while, Jaune wondered just what exactly this would achieve. Fighting clearly did nothing. Each time he deviated from the script lead to violence, which in turn, lead to a total reset in time.

This was the last thing he could think of to avoid another reset. The only thing he had not tried as of yet. So, he played along and recited his lines. His acting was not particularly convincing, but given that nothing turned violent, it clearly did not need to be.

* * *

Pyrrha flipped through the channels. She went through all of the security cameras available to her. The ones that had not already been destroyed, that is. She found nothing. There was no sign of him and it began worrying her to no end. He seemed to simply disappear without a trace.

She was on the verge of vaulting over the sofa and throwing herself at the door in an attempt to break it down when she suddenly landed on a strange channel. It was not the feed of a security camera. That much was certain.

Pyrrha saw that familiar head of blond hair. A head she could recognize a mile off and let out a sigh of relief. A warm smile spread across her face at the sight of him, despite the weird scene he found himself in. In the background was an all-white room with a strange-looking man who was either wearing a rabbit's costume or was quite literally half rabbit. Either way, he had a rabbit's head and that was a detail that Pyrrha could not ignore.

Slowly, Pyrrha placed the remote down beside her and studied the television. The only light in the room radiated from that very screen. It reflected off of her glassy eyes and tinted the entire room blue.

"You say you're leaving," Jaune's voice echoed throughout the room.

Pyrrha immediately reacted by turning up the volume. She had almost forgotten what he sounded like. She only wished she had a means of recording this weird little show just to hear him speak on loop.

"Oh, but it is the truth," the rabbit informed regrettably. "I'm leaving tonight..."

As Pyrrha listened to the rabbit's monologue, she could not help but notice the bizarre figure standing behind Jaune and this strange rabbit man. It was clearly a mannequin or model, but what confused her the most, and what she found to be particularly creepy was that it bared a strong resemblance to her.

She kept watching none the less and ignored that strange doll. Her attention was still locked on Jaune. She could not bring herself to stop watching him. She found herself giggling every time he said a line.

"Come on, Jaune. Put some emotion into it. You're not convincing anyone."

His acting skills did leave something to be desired. He did look particularly miserable at all times, but Pyrrha ignored his expression. She was simply too excited at the fact that he was still safe, or at least, he seemed to be.

Pyrrha watched this little drama play out without really paying attention to much else besides him. She was not even truly listening to what he was saying as opposed to simply listening to the sound of his voice. Clearly, this was meant to be some sort of heartfelt episode of a surreal sitcom, but even the rabbit who was putting far more effort into his role than Jaune seemed a bit impatient.

It was as if he wanted it to be over more than Jaune did. Indeed, it was most certainly a weird show to watch. Pyrrha had no idea where it was going, and she was not at all entertained by it. The jokes were annoying, the dialogue was anything but interesting, and the sorrowful plot of the episode felt a bit cheap to her.

* * *

Jaune continued through his routine. At certain points, he almost forgot his lines. Those were the moments when this dull acting gig got real stressful, real quick. Fortunately for him, he was always able to jog his memory at the very last second. He shuttered to think of what would happen if he were to wait too long to say something and thus, ruin the entire episode.

At the moment, it was Jack's turn to speak. If memory served Jaune well, then this next line would mark the ending of this bizarre drama.

"I do appreciate all the time we spent here in this little abode, but I must be off, now. Another world awaits me..."

Jaune furrowed a brow at him. Jack was still going through his normal, over the top style of acting, but the lines suggested something else. He, of course, read over Jack's lines as well just to know when which of his lines to follow up with, but he did not pay too much attention to them during his little rehearsal.

"Did it stop raining yet?"

His lines devolved into similar topics. Random lines that made no contextual sense to the current scene.

The rabbit ignored his bizarre question and went on spouting dialogue that made more contextual sense with whatever was supposed to be happening. Jaune attempted to find meaning in his own lines, but he never found the time to truly contemplate them. He was deathly afraid of forgetting his lines or dosing off into thought in the middle of a scene.

Such an occurrence would surely lead to a repeat of things to come. Ironically, keeping that knowledge fresh on his mind resulted in him losing track in the lines of his rabbit co-star.

If his already failing memory served him correctly, his next line would be the last line. A one-word statement that would ideally close off this hellish program, and with any luck, set the blond boy free from this torment.

Jack hesitated. His vacant black eyes stared right through him. It came to Jaune at the very last second. The moment when he saw that rabbit baring his teeth.

" _Farewell._ "

The rabbit then quietly walked past Jaune and out of the room entirely. He stood still, not sure what to do with himself as he recalled that the script simply cut off there. Not even the act of Jack leaving the room was called for. So, he did not move and could only assume Jack knew what he was doing.

"I thank you for figuring it out," Jack's voice suddenly sounded off from behind.

Jaune turned to face him. He shot a look of bewilderment at the sight of the rabbit who, in turn, stared back at him. He lowered his hand over his sword in anticipation for an attack that never did come his way.

"I cannot recall how long it's been since I was first trapped in this room with that script. I had to act out everything in it. An entire series of plays that carried on until this very last one. This last installment that just so happened to require a separate actor to play a character written in to be important yet had never been introduced or mentioned prior to this installment."

Jaune was hesitant in making his reply. "I don't get it. What's going on around here?"

"I died on stage," the rabbit explained. "I woke up here and immediately understood that the only way out was to act out this newly written script. When it came time to call for a second actor, I had already learned a mortal was coming to this property. I saw be dropped through the dumbwaiter and waited for another one to fall. I captured it, realized who it was meant for, edited, and sent it on its way. There are others in there which I never got around to reworking. I apologize for laying a trap, but I could no longer bear this place."

"What kept you here?"

Jack let out a long sigh upon hearing the question. "That is the best question you'll probably have for anyone of us here. We're all trapped here for some reason or another. Some have been here longer than others. Some know themselves well enough to understand what binds them to this place and thus likely choose to stay. I am not one of them. Even now, I do not know what has kept me bound here for so long, but now I can finally see the other side."

"Other side? What do you mean?"

The explanation was only succeeding to raise far more questions in Jaune's mind than it answered. Unfortunately, the blond-haired knight would not be receiving any more information from this, particularly entity.

Jack's body began to slowly fade from view. He gradually disappeared right before Jaune's eyes. The creature gave one last nod to the boy even as he got up and attempted to stop Jack from leaving this plane of existence so soon.

" _Thanks again_."

His once solid form scattered into a cloud of iridescent dust. The dust floated across the room, past Jaune, and toward a window on the opposite side of the kitchen. The window was sealed shut and resulted in this colorful cloud of dust to gather near it. The mass appeared to bump itself into the window as if trying to make it budge.

Jaune got an idea about what was going on. He gulped and headed over to the window up ahead. He stopped and gave another puzzled glance at the dust around him.

"I think I get it now. At least a small part of what's going on around here," Jaune proclaimed as he reached forward and pulled the window open. The dust immediately began to slip outside and upward into the nighttime sky.

"Farewell."

Jaune was suddenly left alone in the apartment. He was left with not even half of the answers he had hoped for. The mystery of who doctored that second letter was at least solved. The moment that thought entered his mind, he realized that he may indeed have a lead after all.

He quickly scrambled to find the dumbwaiter. The remainder of those captured letters that could have potentially been written by Pyrrha, or more likely, that devilish look-alike. He retreated back into the kitchen in a frantic search for these lost letters.

It did not take very long at all to find this dumbwaiter. It was left wide open. The net that had been rigged inside of it was on full display for Jaune to see. Just as the pile of papers that had fallen from somewhere above was all still there. He reached into the shaft and pulled out a couple of pieces of parchment.

They all read almost identically. Each letter had its own variation of the phrase, "Get out!" He spent a considerable amount of time there just searching through each and every note that had been intercepted by Jack. All of them were untouched by him and every last one of them said the same thing.

Somewhere more flowery in their prose than others. They were all of the same handwriting and practically all of them were written with a familiar personality bleeding through the words. He shoved a couple of the longer notes in his pocket before finally deciding to move on. He approached the front door and pulled it open.

Much to Jaune's surprise, there was no dark, elongated corridor made entirely of rustic metal lying before him. He closed his eyes and shook his head violently as if to try and wake himself up out of a dream-like state. The entire structure of the building had changed. It was as if that corridor was never there at all. The moment he opened the door, he was greeted by the same normal and mundane halls that ran through the second floor.

He immediately spotted another apartment door directly in front of him. The same door he spotted on his way into Jack's apartment. He looked up and down the quiet hall. It truly did feel as though that entire corridor had vanished completely. He knew he could not have possibly imagined it. He traveled it twice and both times it seemed to have no end. Now, it was completely erased from reality.

Jaune found himself even more confused when he turned back to face Jack's apartment. The once solid white, almost platinum tint the room had was completely gone. The apartment was entirely identical to what he had remembered, only now the colors were faded and sickly. That sterile white had made like the metal corridor which used to bar this apartment from the rest of the complex and disappeared.

"This is so bizarre," he whispered to himself with a confused scratch of his head. He almost got a sense of vertigo from the whole ordeal.

Despite freedom so clearly being within his grasp, Jaune did not make any attempt to leave so quickly. Instead, the knight retreated back into the bedroom where he began sorting through drawers and furniture now that he had the time to do so.

There was not much at all to be found aside from that newspaper. He gave that gruesome story of an actor meeting a cruel fate on stage one last glance. Jaune had already connected the dots between that story and his previous co-star. As strange as it was, it filled him with a tinge of sorrow distinct from the grief that brought him to this ethereal building in the first place.

A thought suddenly came to him. He completely forgot to even try to search for the key to the next floor. Jaune found himself scrambling once again throughout the bedroom, to find it. He checked every nook and cranny but found nothing. He quickly exited the bedroom, knowing full well that there was nothing here.

Jaune proceeded to turn the entire apartment upside down but he never did uncover much of anything. The haunting image of that key leaving with the apartment's previous occupant entered Jaune's mind but he banished it as quickly as it came. He did not want to think about such a scenario in which his own forgetfulness made it impossible to progress onward.

He eventually gave up and threw his arms up in surrender. It was frustrating, but surely the key was around somewhere on this floor. It clearly was not here which would have made this entire ordeal a massive waste of his time.

Out of mere curiosity, he set his eyes on the floor toward the center of the living room. The same spot where that pike had randomly sprung out of the ground during his little escape attempt. It was not there. He did not expect it to randomly show up either.

Jaune glanced back to the open window across the apartment. He was about ready to take his leave as there was simply nothing left for him in this lonely place but not without a final word.

"Watch your step in the next world."


End file.
